ome to bed!'

He sat up, and with a pathetic gesture held out his arms to her. She
came on to his knee, putting her white arms round his neck, while he
leant his head against her breast.

'Are you tired with all your walking to-day?' she said presently, a pang
at her heart.

'I am tired,' he said, 'but not with walking.'

'Does your book worry you? You shouldn't work so hard, Robert--you
shouldn't!'

He started.

'Don't talk of it. Don't let us talk or think at all, only feel!'

And he tightened his arms round her, happy once more for a moment in
this environment of a perfect love. There was silence for a few moments,
Catherine feeling more and more disturbed and anxious.

'Think of your mountains,' he said presently, his eyes still pressed
against her, 'of High Fell and the moonlight and the house where Mary
Backhouse died. Oh! Catherine, I see you still, and shall always see
you, as I saw you then, my angel of healing and of grace!'

'I too have been thinking of her to-night,' said Catherine softly, 'and
of the walk to Shanmoor. This evening in the garden it seemed to me as
though there were Westmoreland scents in the air! I was haunted by a
vision of bracken, and rocks, and sheep browsing up the fell slopes.'

'Oh for a breath of the wind on High Fell!' cried Robert,--it was so new
to her, the dear voice with this accent in it of yearning depression! 'I
want more of the spirit of the mountains, their serenity, their
strength. Say me that Duddon sonnet you used to say to me there, as you
said it to me that last Sunday before our wedding, when we walked up the
Shanmoor road to say good-bye to that blessed spot. Oh! how I sit and
think of it sometimes, when life seems to be going crookedly, that rock
on the fell-side where I found you, and caught you, and snared you, my
dove, for ever.'

And Catherine, whose mere voice was as balm to this man of many
impulses, repeated to him, softly in the midnight silence, those noble
lines in which Wordsworth has expressed, with the reserve and yet the
strength of the great poet, the loftiest yearning of the purest hearts--

'Enough, if something from our hand have power
To live and move, and serve the future hour,
And if, as towards the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.'

'He has divined it all,' said Robert, drawing a long breath when she
stopped, which se