orus of
creation around her, conscious only of the uplifting joy of the great
light that had broken in on her. At last she stopped by a gate that
led into a field of newly-turned earth--downland just broken by the
plough, lying bare and open to the breath of heaven, and beyond, the
swelling line of downs was blurred with misty rain and merged into the
driving grey clouds above. Behind her in an oak tree a robin was
singing with passionate intensity. She drew a deep breath and then
held out her arms to the world.

"I understand, I understand," she whispered. "Love and Christopher.
Love and Christopher, there is nothing else in the whole world."

She had accepted the revelation without fear, without question,
without distrust. She gave no thought at all at present as to
Christopher's attitude to her, as to whether he had anything to give
in return for her great gift of herself. She gave herself to Love
first, to him after, if such were Love's will. But it made no
difference whether he knew or not, she was his, and the recognition
drowned all lesser emotion in the great depth of its joy. She wasted
no time in lamenting her blindness or the interlude with another
lesser love: it troubled her not at all, for by such steps had she
climbed to this unexpected summit. Just at present the glory of that
was all-satisfying, so much more than she had ever looked for or
imagined possible, that to demand the uttermost crown of his returning
love was in these first moments too great a consummation to be borne.

She stood there with her hands clasped and the only words she found
were, "Christopher and Love," and again, "Love and Christopher," as if
they were the alphabet of a new language.

Quite slowly the physical horizon crept up to this plane of exultant
joy and claimed her, but even as she recognised the claim she knew the
familiar world would bear for her a new aspect, and found no
resentment, only a quiet relief as it closed her in. The languor and
fatigue of the backward journey did not distress her, every step of
the way she was studying the news.

Every blade of grass and every twig spoke of this new language to her,
proclaiming a kinship that made her rich in sympathy and
comprehension of all humble lovely things.

She was seized with fear when she reached home that she would
encounter Christopher in the hall before she was prepared to accept
him as the most unchanged point of her altered world. Instead she met
Consta