And the hall clock struck--Two! She could just see his face in the glimmer that filtered from the skylight at the top.

And she felt that he was learning her, learning all that she had to give him, learning the trust that was shining through her eyes.

There was just enough light for them to realize the old house watching from below and from above--a glint on the dark floor there, on the dark wall here; a blackness that seemed to be inhabited by some spirit, so that their hands clutched and twitched, when the tiny, tiny noises of Time, playing in wood and stone, clicked out.
That stare of the old house, with all its knowledge of lives past, of youth and kisses spent and gone, of hopes spun and faiths abashed, the old house cynical, stirred in them desire to clutch each other close and feel the thrill of peering out together into mystery that must hold for them so much of love and joy and trouble! And suddenly she put her fingers to his face, passed them softly, clingingly, over his hair, forehead, eyes, traced the sharp cheek-bones down to his jaw, round by the hard chin up to his lips, over the straight bone of his nose, lingering, back, to his eyes again.
"Now, if I go blind, I shall know you.

Give me one kiss, Derek.

You MUST be tired." Buried in the old dark house that kiss lasted long; then, tiptoeing--she in front--pausing at every creak, holding breath, they stole up to their rooms.