seemed still radiating light, as though the air had been so
drenched in sunshine that even long after the sun had vanished the
invading darkness found itself still unable to win firm possession of
earth and sky. Every little stone in the sandy road was still weirdly
visible; the colour of the heather, now in lavish bloom, could be felt
though hardly seen.

Before him melted line after line of woodland, broken by hollow after
hollow, filled with vaporous wreaths of mist. About him were the sounds
of a wild nature. The air was resonant with the purring of the
night-jars, and every now and then he caught the loud clap of their
wings as they swayed unsteadily through the furze and bracken. Overhead
a trio of wild ducks flew across, from pond to pond, their hoarse cry
descending through the darkness. The partridges on the hill called to
each other, and certain sharp sounds betrayed to the solitary listener
the presence of a flock of swans on a neighbouring pool.

The rector felt himself alone on a wide earth. It was almost with a
start of pleasure that he caught at last the barking of dogs on a few
distant farms, or the dim thunderous rush of a train through the wide
wooded landscape beyond the heath. Behind that frowning mass of wood lay
the rectory. The lights must be lit in the little drawing-room;
Catherine must be sitting by the lamp, her fine head bent over book or
work, grieving for him perhaps, her anxious expectant heart going out to
him through the dark. He thinks of the village lying wrapped in the
peace of the August night, the lamp rays from shop-front or casement
streaming out on to the green; he thinks of his child, of his dead
mother, feeling heavy and bitter within him all the time the message of
separation and exile.

But his mood was no longer one of mere dread, of helpless pain, of
miserable self-scorn. Contact with Henry Grey had brought him that
rekindling of the flame of conscience, that medicinal stirring of the
soul's waters, which is the most precious boon that man can give to man.
In that sense which attaches to every successive resurrection of our
best life from the shades of despair or selfishness, he had that day,
almost that hour, been born again. He was no longer filled mainly with
the sense of personal failure, with scorn for his own blundering
impetuous temper, so lacking in prescience and in balance; or, in
respect to his wife, with such an anguished impotent remorse. He was
nerved and