But the kind Fates had saved me the trouble. Without a syllable save Christian names stammered in that eerie darkness we had come to complete understanding. The fairies had been at work unseen, and the thoughts of each of us had been moving towards the other, till love had germinated like a seed in the dark. As I held her in my arms I stroked her hair and murmured things which seemed to spring out of some ancestral memory. Certainly my tongue had never used them before, nor my mind imagined them ... By and by she slipped her arms round my neck and with a half sob strained towards me. She was still trembling.
'd**k,' she said, and to hear that name on her lips was the sweetest thing I had ever known. 'd**k, is it really you? Tell me I'm not dreaming.'
'It's me, sure enough, Mary dear. And
