e wind, that last night had run with
slow tremors through the leaves, was now blowing gustily, and banks of
clouds were gathering--great clouds that made the vegetation seem all
the more dry and stale as they still deferred their drench of rain.

"Guy, I don't want to annoy you, but is it really necessary that your
poems should appear without your name?"

"Absolutely," he said, firmly.

"You don't think any of them are good?"

"Oh, some are all right, but I don't believe in them as I used to
believe in them."

"Sometimes, my dearest, you frighten me with the sudden way in which you
dispose of things.... They were important to you once, weren't they?"

"Of course. But they have outlived their date. I must do better."

She got up and went over to the window-seat, and when she spoke next she
was looking at the wicket in the high gray wall.

"Guy, could I outlive my date?"

"Oh, dearest Pauline, I do beg you not to start problems this afternoon!
Of course not."

"Are you sure? Are you sure that when you are in London you won't find
other girls more interesting than I am?"

"Even if temporarily I were interested in another girl, you may be quite
sure that she would always be second to you."

"But you might be interested?" Pauline asked, breathlessly.

"I must be free if I'm going to be an artist."

"Free?" she echoed, slowly.

The cuckoo in the passage struck seven, and Mrs. Grey came into the
nursery to invite Guy to stay to dinner. All through the meal Pauline
kept saying to herself, "free," "free," "free," and afterwards when her
mother suggested a trio in the music-room, because they could no longer
have quartets, and because soon they would not even have trios, Pauline
played upon her violin nothing but that word "free," "free," "free." In
the hall, when she kissed Guy good night, she had impulse to cling to
him and pour out all her woes; but, remembering how often lately he had
been the victim of her overwrought nerves, she let him go without an
effort. For a little while she held the door ajar so that a thin shaft
of lamplight showed his tall shape walking quickly away under the trees.
Why was he walking so quickly away from her? Oh, it was raining fast,
and she shut the door. Up-stairs in her room she wrote to him:

Guy, you must forgive me, but I cannot bear the strain of this
long engagement any more. I will go away with Miss Verney
somewhere to-morrow so that you needn't hurry awa