ll existed. It was chiefly this fact that dazzled him, and almost
choked him with a sensation of all too abundant ecstasy.

"One touch of Nature!" Yes, indeed; and in England of the twentieth
century it was terrifying in its intensity. Those tame people who talked
glibly of "Nature" and of "a return to Nature," as if this were
something they could contemplate with blissful equanimity, imagined
belike that Nature was all humming bees, smiling meadows, nodding
blooms and sporting butterflies, the Nature of the most successful
Victorian poets. It was their back-parlour misinterpretation and
belittlement of Nature that made these modern Philistines worship her.
Even the most sanguine could hardly suspect them of having the courage,
the good blood and the taste, to worship Nature as she really
was,--Nature with all her intoxicating joys, staggering immorality and
tragic passions.

Thus did Lord Henry meditate as he picked his way eagerly back to the
spot where Cleopatra lay, and for the first moment that day he began to
feel proud of his work at Brineweald.

When he reached the girl again she was just recovering consciousness,
and, as her frightened eyes began to take in the scene about her, and
recognised him, he noticed that she shuddered.

He knelt down and took her hand, but she shrank from him with a look of
such concentrated terror that he allowed her fingers to slip slowly
away.

"My poor dear girl!" he murmured, wiping the beads of perspiration from
her brow. "My poor brave Cleo!"

Her teeth chattered a little, and again the frightened look entered her
tired eyes, and she appeared to swoon once more.

He threw off his rain-coat and laid it on her, supported her head on his
knee, and waited thus for some time.

After a little while, however, it occurred to him that someone might
come across them if they remained so close to the house, and picking up
his charge, he penetrated further into the wood in the direction of the
morning's walk.

The movement seemed to restore Cleopatra a little, and laying her down
on a gentle slope, he succeeded in making her sip a little brandy from
his flask.

"You are breathing too quickly," he said. "You have just had a most
terrific shaking and your head is agitated. Try breathing more slowly
and deeply, as if nothing had happened; and soon your body will be
persuaded that nothing has happened."

He spoke sternly, but with just that modicum of tenderness which made
his wor