e sayings at which the heart of the one who
speaks sinks with a kind of dismay, and the heart of the one who hears
quivers. She cantered on. And he, perforce, after her. When she reined
in again, he glanced into her face and was afraid. It was all closed up
against him. And he said softly:

"I didn't mean that, Gyp."

But she only shook her head. He HAD meant it--had wanted to hurt her!
It didn't matter--she wouldn't give him the chance again. And she said:

"Look at that long white cloud, and the apple-green in the sky--rain
to-morrow. One ought to enjoy any fine day as if it were the last."

Uneasy, ashamed, yet still a little angry, Summerhay rode on beside her.

That night, she cried in her sleep; and, when he awakened her, clung to
him and sobbed out:

"Oh! such a dreadful dream! I thought you'd left off loving me!"

For a long time he held and soothed her. Never, never! He would never
leave off loving her!

But a cloud no broader than your hand can spread and cover the whole day.

V

The summer passed, and always there was that little patch of silence in
her heart, and in his. The tall, bright days grew taller, slowly passed
their zenith, slowly shortened. On Saturdays and Sundays, sometimes with
Winton and little Gyp, but more often alone, they went on the river. For
Gyp, it had never lost the magic of their first afternoon upon it--never
lost its glamour as of an enchanted world. All the week she looked
forward to these hours of isolation with him, as if the surrounding water
secured her not only against a world that would take him from her, if it
could, but against that side of his nature, which, so long ago she had
named "old Georgian." She had once adventured to the law courts by
herself, to see him in his wig and gown. Under that stiff grey crescent
on his broad forehead, he seemed so hard and clever--so of a world to
which she never could belong, so of a piece with the brilliant bullying
of the whole proceeding. She had come away feeling that she only
possessed and knew one side of him. On the river, she had that side
utterly--her lovable, lazy, impudently loving boy, lying with his head in
her lap, plunging in for a swim, splashing round her; or with his sleeves
rolled up, his neck bare, and a smile on his face, plying his slow sculls
down-stream, singing, "Away, my rolling river," or puffing home like a
demon in want of his dinner. It was such a blessing to lose for a few