minate pushed him on to
say:

"While one's alive one naturally wants to go on living for ever; that's
part of being alive. But it probably isn't anything more."

"Don't you believe in the Bible at all, then?"

Ashurst thought: 'Now I shall really hurt her!'

"I believe in the Sermon on the Mount, because it's beautiful and good
for all time."

"But don't you believe Christ was divine?"

He shook his head.

She turned her face quickly to the window, and there sprang into his mind
Megan's prayer, repeated by little Nick: "God bless us all, and Mr.
Ashes!" Who else would ever say a prayer for him, like her who at this
moment must be waiting--waiting to see him come down the lane? And he
thought suddenly: 'What a scoundrel I am!'

All that evening this thought kept coming back; but, as is not unusual,
each time with less poignancy, till it seemed almost a matter of course
to be a scoundrel. And--strange!--he did not know whether he was a
scoundrel if he meant to go back to Megan, or if he did not mean to go
back to her.

They played cards till the children were sent off to bed; then Stella
went to the piano. From over on the window seat, where it was nearly
dark, Ashurst watched her between the candles--that fair head on the
long, white neck bending to the movement of her hands. She played
fluently, without much expression; but what a Picture she made, the faint
golden radiance, a sort of angelic atmosphere hovering about her! Who
could have passionate thoughts or wild desires in the presence of that
swaying, white-clothed girl with the seraphic head? She played a thing of
Schumann's called "Warum?" Then Halliday brought out a flute, and the
spell was broken. After this they made Ashurst sing, Stella playing him
accompaniments from a book of Schumann songs, till, in the middle of "Ich
grolle nicht," two small figures clad in blue dressing-gowns crept in and
tried to conceal themselves beneath the piano. The evening broke up in
confusion, and what Sabina called "a splendid rag."

That night Ashurst hardly slept at all. He was thinking, tossing and
turning. The intense domestic intimacy of these last two days, the
strength of this Halliday atmosphere, seemed to ring him round, and make
the farm and Megan--even Megan--seem unreal. Had he really made love to
her--really promised to take her away to live with him? He must have
been bewitched by the spring, the night, the apple blossom! This May
madne