inal, almost affronted look, that he turned to meet
any smile or gesture that seemed to hold in it any personal claim, or to
offer any gift but that of an equal and serene friendship. As a maiden
of the castle once said, provoked by his coldness, "Sir Paul seems to
have everything to say to all of us, but nothing to any one of us." He
was kind to all with a sort of great and distant courtesy that was too
secure even to condescend. And so the years passed away.

III

It was nearly noon at the Castle of Wresting, and the whole house was
deserted, for the Duke had ridden out at daybreak to the hunt; and all
that could find a horse to ride had gone with him; and, for it was not
far afield, all else that could walk had gone afoot. So bright and
cheerful a day was it that the Duchess had sent out her pavilion to be
pitched in a lawn in the wood, and the Duke with his friends were to
dine there; none were left in the castle save a few of the elder
serving-maids, and the old porter, who was lame. About midday, however,
it seemed that one had been left; for Paul, now a tall man, strongly
built and comely, yet with a somewhat dreamful air, as though he
pondered difficult things within himself, and a troubled brow, under
which looked out large and gentle eyes, came with a quick step down a
stairway. He turned neither to right nor left, but passed through the
porter's lodge. Here the road from the town came up into the castle on
the left, cut steeply in the hill, and you could see the red roofs laid
out like a map beneath, with the church and the bridge; to the right ran
a little terrace under the wall. Paul came through the lodge, nodding
gravely to the porter, who returned his salute with a kind of reverence;
then he walked on to the terrace, and stood for a moment leaning against
the low wall that bounded it; below him lay for miles the great wood of
Wresting, now all ablaze with the brave gold of autumn leaves; here was
a great tract of beeches all rusty red; there was the pale gold of elms.
The forest lay in the plain, here and there broken by clearings or open
glades; in one or two places could be seen the roofs of villages, with
the tower of a church rising gravely among trees. On the horizon ran a
blue line of downs, pure and fine above the fretted gold of the forest.
The air was very still, with a fresh sparkle in it, and the sun shone
bright in a cloudless heaven; it was a day when the heaviest heart grows
light,