ternoon. All round him were green slopes of the
Pyrenees, green with pasture and with turf, with bracken, with woods of
oak. There came by a yoke of white oxen, their heads covered with the
wonted sheepskin, and on their foreheads the fringe of red wool
tassels; he touched a warm flank with his palm, and looked into the
mild, lustrous eyes of the beast that passed near him.

"Vera, Vera," he repeated to himself, with pleasure in the name. He
should remember Vera when he was back again behind the counter in
Fulham Road. He had never thought to see the Pyrenees, never dreamt of
looking at Spain. It was a good holiday.

"Vera, Vera," he again murmured. How came the place to be so called?
The word seemed to mean _true_. He mused upon it.

He dined at the village inn, then drove at dusk back to Hendaye, down
the great gorge; crags and precipices, wooded ravines and barren
heights glooming magnificently under a sky warm with afterglow; beside
him the torrent leapt and roared, and foamed into whiteness.

And from Hendaye the train brought him back to St. Jean de Luz. Before
going to bed, he penned a note to Mr. Coppinger, saying that he was
Unexpectedly obliged to leave for England, at an early hour next day,
and regretted that he could not come to say good-bye. He added a
postscript. "Miss Elvan will, of course, know of her sister's marriage
to Norbert Franks. I hear it takes place to-morrow. Very good news."

This written, he smoked a meditative pipe, and went upstairs humming a
tune.

CHAPTER 38

Touching the shore of England, Will stamped like a man who returns from
exile. It was a blustering afternoon, more like November than August;
livid clouds pelted him with rain, and the wind chilled his face; but
this suited very well with the mood which possessed him. He had been
away on a holiday--a more expensive holiday than he ought to have
allowed himself, and was back full of vigour. Instead of making him
qualmish, the green roarers of the Channel had braced his nerves, and
put him in good heart; the boat could not roll and pitch half enough
for his spirits. A holiday--a run to the Pyrenees and back; who durst
say that it had been anything else? The only person who could see the
matter in another light was little likely to disclose her thoughts.

At Dover he telegraphed to Godfrey Sherwood: "Come and see me
to-night." True, he had been absent only a week, but the time seemed to
him so long that he felt it mus