aring the sweet descant of nightingales for which
this garden has ever been famous. As we stood silent and listening, a
candle was lit in a small oriel at the end, and the light showing the
tracery of the window added to the picturesqueness of the scene.

Within an hour we were in a landau driving through the still warm lanes
to Didcot. I had seen that Constance's parting with my brother had been
tender, and I am not sure that she was not in tears during some part at
least of our drive; but I did not observe her closely, having my
thoughts elsewhere.

Though we were thus being carried every moment further from the sleeping
city, where I believe that both our hearts were busy, I feel as if I had
been a personal witness of the incidents I am about to narrate, so often
have I heard them from my brother's lips. The two young men, after
parting with us in the High Street, returned to their respective
colleges. John reached his rooms shortly before eleven o'clock. He was
at once sad and happy--sad at our departure, but happy in a new-found
world of delight which his admiration for Constance Temple opened to
him. He was, in fact, deeply in love with her, and the full flood of a
hitherto unknown passion filled him with an emotion so overwhelming that
his ordinary life seemed transfigured. He moved, as it were, in an ether
superior to our mortal atmosphere, and a new region of high resolves and
noble possibilities spread itself before his eyes. He slammed his heavy
outside door (called an "oak") to prevent anyone entering and flung
himself into the window-seat. Here he sat for a long time, the sash
thrown up and his head outside, for he was excited and feverish. His
mental exaltation was so great and his thoughts of so absorbing an
interest that he took no notice of time, and only remembered afterwards
that the scent of a syringa-bush was borne up to him from a little
garden-patch opposite, and that a bat had circled slowly up and down the
lane, until he heard the clocks striking three. At the same time the
faint light of dawn made itself felt almost imperceptibly; the classic
statues on the roof of the schools began to stand out against the white
sky, and a faint glimmer to penetrate the darkened room. It glistened on
the varnished top of his violin-case lying on the table, and on a jug of
toast-and-water placed there by his college servant or scout every night
before he left. He drank a glass of this mixture, and was moving to