reached her side,
he saw that his flowers were almost lost in the vast mass of floral
offerings with which the grave of the woman beater was bestrewn.

'How good of you to remember the anniversary,' she murmured again.

'How could I forget it?' he stammered, astonished. 'Is not this the end
of the terrible twelve-month?'

The soft gratitude died out of her face. 'Oh, is _that_ what you were
thinking of?'

'What else?' he murmured, pale with conflicting emotions.

'What else! I think decency demanded that this day, at least, should be
sacred to his memory. Oh, what brutes men are!' And she burst into
tears.

His patient breast revolted at last. 'You said _he_ was the brute!' he
retorted, outraged.

'Is that your chivalry to the dead? Oh, my poor Harold, my poor Harold!'

For once her tears could not extinguish the flame of his anger. 'But you
told me he beat you,' he cried.

'And if he did, I dare say I deserved it. Oh, my darling, my darling!'
She laid her face on the stone and sobbed.

John Lefolle stood by in silent torture. As he helplessly watched her
white throat swell and fall with the sobs, he was suddenly struck by the
absence of the black velvet band--the truer mourning she had worn in the
lifetime of the so lamented. A faint scar, only perceptible to his
conscious eye, added to his painful bewilderment.

At last she rose and walked unsteadily forward. He followed her in mute
misery. In a moment or two they found themselves on the outskirts of the
deserted heath. How beautiful stretched the gorsy rolling country! The
sun was setting in great burning furrows of gold and green--a panorama
to take one's breath away. The beauty and peace of Nature passed into
the poet's soul.

'Forgive me, dearest,' he begged, taking her hand.

She drew it away sharply. 'I cannot forgive you. You have shown yourself
in your true colours.'

Her unreasonableness angered him again. 'What do you mean? I only came
in accordance with our long-standing arrangement. You have put me off
long enough.'

'It is fortunate I did put you off long enough to discover what you
are.'

He gasped. He thought of all the weary months of waiting, all the long
comedy of telegrams and express letters, the far-off flirtations of the
cosy corner, the baffled elopement to Paris. 'Then you won't marry me?'

'I cannot marry a man I neither love nor respect.'

'You don't love me!' Her spontaneous kiss in his sober Oxford study
seemed to b