It was as if from the vacant hive-door the bees swarmed.

In her eyes, as they met his, he thought he saw an expectancy, a welcome, and his hand, instead of stroking the rose-petals, closed on the rose and on the hand that held it, and kept them close imprisoned and strongly gripped.

He could not remember if he had spoken any word, but he had seen that in her face which rendered all speech unnecessary, and, knowing in the bones and the blood of him that he was right, he kissed her.

And then she had said, "Yes, Michael." His hand still was tight on hers that held the crumpled rose, and when he opened it, lover-like, to stroke and kiss it, there was a spot of blood in the palm of it, where a rose-thorn had pricked her, just one drop of Sylvia's blood.

As he kissed it, he had wiped it away with the tip of his tongue between his lips, and she smiling had said, "Oh, Michael, how silly!" They had sat together on the sofa where this afternoon he sat alone waiting for her.