seemed to get back; dissimilarity, therefore, was rather a hindrance than a thing to plume oneself upon.

“We are nearly there now,” he said, regretfully, as the track they had been pursuing here merged in a broader main road.

“Yes. But what a day we have had. Hasn’t it been too sweet?”

“Too sweet indeed! A day to look back upon to the very end of one’s life.”

A couple of miles further and they topped a rise. In the stillness the sudden barking of dogs was borne to their ears. It came from where two or three iron roofs glinted in the moonlight some three-quarters of a mile on the further side of the valley. Both dismounted, for the rest of the way she was to finish alone.

“Good-bye now, my own love, my sweet,” he murmured as they stood, locked together in a last long embrace. “I shall see you to-morrow, but it will not be as it has been to-day.”

“Not quite. But we will have other days like this. And—keep up heart—remember, for my sake. When you are disposed to lose it, think of me and feel sure that nothing can part us—as sure as that moon is shining. Good-bye, my love. It is only ‘good-night,’ though.”

No more was said, as he swung her into the saddle. He himself stood there watching her fast receding form, nor did he leave the spot until the sudden subsidence of the canine clamour, told that she had reached her home.

Then he mounted, and took his way slowly back through the moonlit glories of the beautiful slumbering waste.