Chapter 6 - Page 2

throb of pulsing hearts, there
moved with the spellbound throng one boy and girl whose dream of being
was a thing of entrancement.

Every few days they met in some wonderfully chosen and always quiet
spot. Donal knew and loved the half unknown remote corners of the older
London too. There were dim gardens behind old law courts, bits of mellow
old enclosures and squares seemingly forgotten by the world, there were
the immensities of the great parks where embowered paths and corners
were at certain hours as unexplored as the wilderness. When the Duchess
was away or a day of holiday came, there were, more than once, a few
hours on the river where, with boat drawn up under enshrouding trees,
green light and lapping water, sunshine and silence, rare swans sailing
serenely near as if to guard them made the background to the thrill of
heavenly young wonder and joy.

It was always the same. Each pair of eyes found in the beauty of the
other the same wonder and, through that which the being of each
expressed, each was shaken by the same inward thrill. Sometimes they
simply sat and gazed at each other like happy amazed children scarcely
able to translate their own delight. Their very aloofness from the
world--its unawareness of their story's existence made for the
perfection of all they felt.

"It could not be like this if any one but ourselves even _knew_," Donal
said. "It is as if we had been changed into spirits and human beings
could not see us."

There was seldom much leisure in their meetings. Sometimes they had only
a few minutes in which to exchange a word or so, to cling to each
other's hands. But even in these brief meetings the words that were said
were food for new life and dreams when they were apart. And the tide
rose.

But it did not overflow until one early morning when they met in a
gorse-filled hollow at Hampstead, each looking at the other pale and
stricken. In Robin's wide eyes was helpless horror and Donal knew too
well what she was going to say.

"Lord Halwyn is killed!" she gasped out. "And four of his friends! We
all danced the tango together--and that new kicking step!" She began to
sob piteously. Somehow it was the sudden memory of the almost comic
kicking step which overwhelmed her with the most gruesome sense of
awfulness--as if the world had come to an end.

"It was new--and they laughed so! They are killed!" she cried beating
her little hands. He had just heard the same news. Five of them! And he
had heard details she had been spared.

He was as pale as she. He stood before her quivering, hot and cold.
Until this hour they had been living only through the early growing
wonder of their dream;