All night long she sat beside him, her head against his shoulder,
sometimes touching his drawn face with warm, sweet lips, sometimes
looking down at the little face pressed to her quiet breast.

And all night long the light burned behind the closed blinds of her
room; and the little silvery dusk-moths floated in and out of the
rays. And Hafiz, sitting on the grass, watched them sometimes;
sometimes he gazed at his young mistress out of wide, unblinking eyes.

"Hafiz," she murmured lazily in her sweetly humorous way.

The cat uttered a soft little mew but did not move. And when she laid
her cheek close to Clive's whispering,--"I love you--I love you
so!"--he never stirred.

Her blue eyes, brooding, grew patient, calm, and tender; she looked
down silently into the little face close cradled in her arms.

Then the child's eyes opened like two blue stars; and she bent over in
a swift ecstasy of bliss, covering the flower-like face with kisses.