“She is dead,” said Hilary. “She died last year. She left me…some money. At first I didn’t think I could take it. Then…I thought…perhaps it would be a slap in her dead face if I didn’t. So I took it…and had my year in the East. After all…I think she loved me once…when I was her little Jingle-baby. Afterwards…she forgot. He made her forget. I mean to try to think of her without bitterness, Pat.”

“It doesn’t do to hold bitterness,” said Pat slowly. “Judy always says that. It…it poisons life. I know. I’m trying to put a certain bitterness out of my own life. Oh, Hilary…I know it is babyish to long as I do for the old happy days…they can never come back, although, now that you are here, they seem to be just around the corner.”

In the evening they went through the woods to the Secret Field. Hilary had always understood her love of that field. The woods had a beautiful mood on that evening…a friendly mood. They didn’t always have it. Sometimes they were aloof…wrapped up in their own concerns. Sometimes they even frowned. But she and Hilary were two children again and the woods took them to their heart. They were full of little pockets of sunshine and ferny paths and whispers and clumps of birches that the winds loved…wild growths and colors and scents in sweet procession…a sunset seen through fir tops…great rosy clouds over the Secret Field…all the old magic and witchery had come back.

“If this could last,” thought Pat.

It was raining moonlight through the poplars when they got back. They went into the old garden, lying fragrant and velvety under the moon. White roses glimmered mysteriously here and there. A little wind brought them the spice of the ferns along the Whispering Lane. Pat was silent. Talk was a commonplace which did not belong to this enchanted hour. It was one of the moments when beauty seemed to flow through her like a river. She surrendered herself utterly to the charm of the time and place. There was no past—no future—nothing but this exquisite present.

Hilary looked at the moonlit brilliance of her eyes and bent a little nearer…his lips opened to speak. But a car came whirling into the yard and May got out of it, amid a chorus of howls without words from its other occupants. Pat shivered. May was back. The day of enchantment was over.