tell you about it, my beloved!"

Travers watched her as he spoke. Again that tremor ran through Priscilla.

It was nearly noon when they stopped, at Travers's word. They had come,
silently, up the trail, only their footsteps and their quicker breathing
breaking the awesome stillness. Their separate thoughts were bringing
them dangerously nearer together, trampling caution, warning, and purpose
beneath their young yearning for the vital meaning of life. When they
faced each other at last it was as if they had indeed been transfigured.

"Mine!" whispered Travers, stretching out his hands. "You are mine! Do
not struggle."

Priscilla put her hands in his, but did not speak.

"And now let us sit here. I want you to understand. You will try to
understand?"

"Yes."

All her life Priscilla was to look back on that moment as the first
perfect one of her life. She felt no shame in taking it. It belonged to
her, and she meant to prove herself to him.

"I feel as if there were a new heaven and a new earth, Priscilla, and
that you and I had just been created--the first man, the first woman.
Dear heart, rest your head, so, against my knee." He was sitting above
her. "Your hair holds all the glory of the sunlight, and how white and
warm your throat is!" His fingers touched it reverently. "Let us cling