"No, indeed, Lady of Night," he said, "I admit I am but a mole, but you will let me perceive them with your eyes, will you not?"

She slipped from her perch suddenly, before he could put out a protesting hand to stop her, and glided out of his view into the dark of the copse, and from there he heard the intoxicating silver laughter which maddened his every sense.

"Halcyone! Witch!" he called. "Come back to me--I am afraid, all alone!"

So she came, appearing like a materializing wraith from the shadow, and with an undulating movement of incredible grace she was again seated upon her perch, the fallen forked branch of the tree.

John Derringham was experiencing the strongest emotion he had ever felt in his life.

A maddening desire to seize the elusive joy--to come nearer--to a.s.sure himself that she was real and not a spirit of night sent to torture and elude him--overcame all other thought. The startling change from her deportment of the day--the very way she glided about was as the movement of some other being.

And as those old worshipers of Dionysus had grown intoxicated with the night and the desire of communion with the beyond, so he--John Derringham--cool, calculating English statesman--felt himself being drawn into a current of emotion and enthrallment whose end could only be an ecstasy of which he did not yet dare to dream.

It was all so abnormal--to see her here, a shadow, a tantalizing soft shadow with a new personality--it was no wonder he rubbed his eyes and asked himself if he were awake.

"Come with me," she whispered, bending nearer to him, "and I will show you how the wild roses grow at night."

"I will follow you to Hades," he said, "but I warn you I cannot see a yard beyond my nose. You must lead me with your hand, if so ethereal a spirit possesses a hand."

Again the silver laugh, and he saw her not, but presently she appeared from behind the tree. She had let down her misty, mouse-colored hair, and it floated around her like a cloud.

Then she slipped a cool, soft set of fingers into his, and led him onward, with sure and certain steps, while he blundered, not knowing where to put his feet, and all the time she turned every few seconds and looked at him, and he could just distinguish the soft mystery of her eyes, while now and then, as she walked, a tendril of her floating hair flew out and caressed his face, as once before, long ago.

"There are fairy things all about us," she said. "Countless pink campions and b.u.t.tercups, with an elf in each. They will feel your giant feet, but they will know you are a mortal and cannot help your ways, because, you poor, blind bat, you cannot see!"

"And you?" he asked. "Who gave you these eyes?"

"My mother," she answered softly, "the G.o.ddess of the Night."

And then she drew him on rapidly and stealthily, and he saw at last, in the open s.p.a.ce where the stars and the sinking moon gave more light, that they were approaching the broken gate, and were near the terraced garden, which now was better kept.

When they got to this barrier to their path, Halcyone paused and leaned upon it.

"Mortal," she said, "you are wandering in a maze. You have come thus far because I have led you, but you would have fallen if you had walked so fast alone. Now look, and I will show you the lily-of-the-valley cups--there are only a few there under the shelter of the gray stone arch. Come."

And she opened the gate, letting go of his hand as she glided beyond.

"I cannot and will not hazard a step if you leave me," he called, and she came back and gave him again her soft fingers to hold. So at last they reached the summer house at the end of the second terrace, where the archway was where old William kept his tools.

There were very few flowers out, but a ma.s.s of wild roses, and still some May tulips bloomed, while from the meadow beneath them came that indescribable freshness which young clover gives.

John Derringham knew now that he was dreaming--or drunk with some nectar which was not of earth. And still she led him on, and then pointed to the old bench which he could just see.

"We shall sit here," she said, "and Aphrodite shall tell us your future--for see, she, too, loves the night and comes here with me."

And to his intense astonishment, as he peered on to the table, he saw a misty ma.s.s of folds of silk, and there lay the G.o.ddess's head, that Halcyone had shown to him that day in the long gallery more than a month ago.

He was so petrified with surprise at the whole thing that he had ceased to reason. Everything came now as a matter of course, like the preposterous sequence of events in a dream. The Aphrodite lay, as a woman caressed, half buried in her silken folds, but Halcyone lifted her up and propped her against a stone vase which was near, letting the silk fall so that the broken neck did not show, and it seemed as if a living woman's face gazed down upon them.

John Derringham's eyes were growing more accustomed to the darkness, or Halcyone really had some magic power, for it seemed to him that he could see the divine features quite clearly.

"She is saying," the soft voice of his companion whispered in his ear, "that all the things you will grasp with your hands are but dreams--and the things that you now believe to be dreams are all real."

"And are you a dream, you sweet?" asked John Derringham. "Or are you tangible, and must I drink the poison cup, after all?"

"I would give you no noxious wine," she answered. "If you were strong and wise and true, only the fire which I have stolen from heaven could come to you."

"Long ago," he said, "you gave me an oak-leaf, dryad, and I have kept it still. What now will you grant to me?"

"Nothing, since you fear--" and she drew back.

"I do not fear," he answered wildly. "Halcyone!--sweetheart! I want you--here--next my heart. Give me--yourself!"

Then he stretched out his arms and drew her to him, all soft and loving and unresisting, and he pressed his lips to her pure and tender lips.

And it seemed as if the heavens opened, and the Night poured down all that was divine of bliss.

But before he could be sure that indeed he held her safely in his arms, she started forward, releasing herself. Then, clasping Aphrodite and her silken folds, with a bound she was far beyond him, and had disappeared in the shadow of the archway, on whose curve the last rays of moonlight played, so that he saw it outlined and clear.

He strode forward to follow her, but to his amazement, when he reached the place, she seemed to vanish absolutely in front of his eyes, and although he lit a match and searched everywhere, not the slightest trace of her could he find, and there was no opening or possible corner into which she could have disappeared.

Absolutely dumbfounded, he groped his way back to the bench, and sitting down buried his head in his hands. Surely it was all a dream, then, and he had been drunk--with the Professor's Falernian wine--and had wandered here and slept. But, G.o.d of all the nights, what an exquisite dream!

CHAPTER XVIII

The half-moon set, and the night became much darker before John Derringham rose from his seat by the bench. A stupor had fallen upon him. He had ceased to reason. Then he got up and made his way back to the orchard house, under the myriads of pale stars, which shone with diminished brilliancy from the luminous, summer night sky.

Here he seemed to grow material again and to realize that he was indeed awake. But what had happened to him? Whether he had been dreaming or no, a spell had fallen upon him--he had drunk of the poison cup. And Halcyone filled his mind. He thrilled and thrilled again as he remembered the exquisite joy of their tender embrace--even though it had been no real thing, but a dream, it was still the divinest good his life had yet known.

But what could it lead to if it were real? Nothing but sorrow and parting and regret. For his career still mattered to him, he knew, now that he was in his sane senses again, more than anything else in the world. And he could not burden himself with a poor, uninfluential girl as a wife, even though the joy of it took them both to heaven.

The emotion he was experiencing was one quite new to him, and he almost resented it, because it was upsetting some of his beliefs.

The next day, at breakfast, the Professor remarked that he looked pale.

"You rather overwork, John," he said. "To lie about the garden here and not have to follow the caprices of fashionable ladies at Wendover, would do you a power of good."

There was no sight of Halcyone all the day. She was living in a paradise, but hers contained no doubts or uncertainties. She knew that indeed she had lived and breathed the night before, and found complete happiness in John Derringham's arms.

That, then, was what Aphrodite had always been telling her. She knew now the meaning of the love in her eyes. This glorious and divine thing had been given to her, too--out of the night.

It was fully perceived at last, not only half glanced at almost with fear. Love had come to her, and whatever might reck of sorrow, it meant her whole life and soul.

And this precious gift of the pure thing from G.o.d she had given in her turn to John Derringham as his lips had pressed her lips.

She spent the whole day in the garden, sitting in the summer house surveying the world. The blue hills in the far distance were surely the peaks of Olympus and she had been permitted to know what existence meant there.