She shut her eyes for a moment, and
heard again the alarmed protest of the whaup, and the grumble of the
burn; saw again the moonlight patterns upon the ground, as it flittered
through the trees, like streams of fairy radiance cast from the magic
wand of night and, above all, heard Peter's voice, praising her eyes,
her hair, her figure.
Her cheeks burned again, and her heart throbbed anew--she heard his
tones, hoarse, vibrant and warm, as his breath scorched her cheek. She
felt his arms about her, the contact of his burning lips upon her own.
Then the calm which follows the wake of the storm, the consciously
averted eyes, and the very conscious breathing, which had in it
something of shame; the almost aversion to speak or touch again, and
over all, the deep silence of the moor, broken only by the burn and the
whaup, and the thick cloud, kindly dark, that came over the moon.
But, behind it all, the remorse and the agony that would never die; the
anxiety and uncertainty, and the secret knowledge for which each had
paid so high a price.
She rose from the bank and went slowly along the lovely moorland path.
Her breath was labored and the cough troubled her.
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