ne to devise an excuse
for him, could not find her, and at last reluctantly set out again
alone.

He was tired and his mood was heavy. As he trudged through the park he
never once noticed the soft sun-flooded distance, the shining loops of
the river, the feeding deer, or any of those natural witcheries to which
eye and sense were generally so responsive. The labourers going home,
the children--with aprons full of crab-apples, and lips dyed by the
first blackberries--who passed him, got but an absent smile or salute
from the rector. The interval of exaltation and recoil was over. The
ship of the mind was once more labouring in alien and dreary seas.

He roused himself to remember that he had been curious to see Madame de
Netteville. She was an old friend of the squire's, the holder of a
London salon, much more exquisite and select than anything Lady
Charlotte could show.

'She had the same thing in Paris before the war,' the squire explained.
'Renan gave me a card to her. An extraordinary woman. No particular
originality; but one of the best persons "to consult about ideas," like
Joubert's Madame de Beaumont, I ever saw. Receptiveness itself. A
beauty, too, or was one, and a bit of a sphinx, which adds to the
attraction. Mystery becomes a woman vastly. One suspects her of
adventures just enough to find her society doubly piquant.'

Vincent directed him to the upper terrace, whither tea had been taken.
This terrace, which was one of the features of Murewell, occupied the
top of the yew-clothed hill on which the library looked out. Evelyn
himself had planned it. Along its upper side ran one of the most
beautiful of old walls, broken by niches and statues, tapestried with
roses and honeysuckle, and opening in the centre to reveal Evelyn's
darling conceit of all--a semicircular space, holding a fountain, and
leading to a grotto. The grotto had been scooped out of the hill; it was
peopled with dim figures of fauns and nymphs who showed white amid its
moist greenery; and in front a marble Silence drooped over the fountain,
which held gold and silver fish in a singularly clear water. Outside ran
the long stretch of level turf, edged with a jewelled rim of flowers;
and as the hill fell steeply underneath, the terrace was like a high
green platform raised into air, in order that a Wendover might see his
domain, which from thence lay for miles spread out before him.

Here, beside the fountain, were gathered the squire, Mrs. D