ot mean, if she could help it, that either Effie or Owen should
know that loneliness, or let her know it again. They were three, now, to
keep each other warm, and she embraced both children in the same passion
of motherhood, as though one were not enough to shield her from her
predecessor's fate.

Sometimes she fancied that Owen Leath's response was warmer than that
of her own child. But then Effie was still hardly more than a baby,
and Owen, from the first, had been almost "old enough to understand":
certainly DID understand now, in a tacit way that yet perpetually spoke
to her. This sense of his understanding was the deepest element in their
feeling for each other. There were so many things between them that were
never spoken of, or even indirectly alluded to, yet that, even in their
occasional discussions and differences, formed the unadduced arguments
making for final agreement...

Musing on this, she continued to watch his approach; and her heart began
to beat a little faster at the thought of what she had to say to him.
But when he reached the gate she saw him pause, and after a moment he
turned aside as if to gain a cross-road through the park.

She started up and waved her sunshade, but he did not see her. No doubt
he meant to go back with the gamekeeper, perhaps to the kennels, to see
a retriever who had hurt his leg. Suddenly she was seized by the whim
to overtake him. She threw down the parasol, thrust her letter into her
bodice, and catching up her skirts began to run.

She was slight and light, with a natural ease and quickness of gait, but
she could not recall having run a yard since she had romped with Owen in
his school-days; nor did she know what impulse moved her now. She only
knew that run she must, that no other motion, short of flight, would
have been buoyant enough for her humour. She seemed to be keeping pace
with some inward rhythm, seeking to give bodily expression to the lyric
rush of her thoughts. The earth always felt elastic under her, and she
had a conscious joy in treading it; but never had it been as soft and
springy as today. It seemed actually to rise and meet her as she went,
so that she had the feeling, which sometimes came to her in dreams, of
skimming miraculously over short bright waves. The air, too, seemed to
break in waves against her, sweeping by on its current all the slanted
lights and moist sharp perfumes of the failing day. She panted to
herself: "This is nonsense!" her