rich stuff of many possessions, the
close encircling fabric of the possessive instinct walling in that little
black figure of himself, and Soames--was it to be rent so that he could
pass through into his vision, find there something not of the senses
only? 'Let me,' he thought, 'ah! let me only know how not to grasp and
destroy!'

But at dinner there were plans to be made. To-night she would go back to
the hotel, but tomorrow he would take her up to London. He must instruct
his solicitor--Jack Herring. Not a finger must be raised to hinder the
process of the Law. Damages exemplary, judicial strictures, costs, what
they liked--let it go through at the first moment, so that her neck might
be out of chancery at last! To-morrow he would see Herring--they would
go and see him together. And then--abroad, leaving no doubt, no
difficulty about evidence, making the lie she had told into the truth.
He looked round at her; and it seemed to his adoring eyes that more than
a woman was sitting there. The spirit of universal beauty, deep,
mysterious, which the old painters, Titian, Giorgione, Botticelli, had
known how to capture and transfer to the faces of their women--this
flying beauty seemed to him imprinted on her brow, her hair, her lips,
and in her eyes.

'And this is to be mine!' he thought. 'It frightens me!'

After dinner they went out on to the terrace to have coffee. They sat
there long, the evening was so lovely, watching the summer night come
very slowly on. It was still warm and the air smelled of lime
blossom--early this summer. Two bats were flighting with the faint
mysterious little noise they make. He had placed the chairs in front of
the study window, and moths flew past to visit the discreet light in
there. There was no wind, and not a whisper in the old oak-tree twenty
yards away! The moon rose from behind the copse, nearly full; and the
two lights struggled, till moonlight conquered, changing the colour and
quality of all the garden, stealing along the flagstones, reaching their
feet, climbing up, changing their faces.

"Well," said Jolyon at last, "you'll be tired, dear; we'd better start.
The maid will show you Holly's room," and he rang the study bell. The
maid who came handed him a telegram. Watching her take Irene away, he
thought: 'This must have come an hour or more ago, and she didn't bring
it out to us! That shows! Well, we'll be hung for a sheep soon!' And,
opening the telegram