ll, I was thinking how clever you
are,' she said, with a want of premeditation that was startling in its
honesty and simplicity.

Feeling restless now that she had so unwittingly spoken, she arose and
stepped to the window, having heard the voices of her father and Mrs.
Swancourt coming up below the terrace. 'Here they are,' she said, going
out. Knight walked out upon the lawn behind her. She stood upon the edge
of the terrace, close to the stone balustrade, and looked towards the
sun, hanging over a glade just now fair as Tempe's vale, up which her
father was walking.

Knight could not help looking at her. The sun was within ten degrees
of the horizon, and its warm light flooded her face and heightened the
bright rose colour of her cheeks to a vermilion red, their moderate pink
hue being only seen in its natural tone where the cheek curved round
into shadow. The ends of her hanging hair softly dragged themselves
backwards and forwards upon her shoulder as each faint breeze thrust
against or relinquished it. Fringes and ribbons of her dress, moved by
the same breeze, licked like tongues upon the parts around them, and
fluttering forward from shady folds caught likewise their share of the
lustrous orange glow.

Mr. Swancourt shouted out a welcome to Knight from a distance of
about thirty yards, and after a few preliminary words proceeded to a
conversation of deep earnestness on Knight's fine old family name, and
theories as to lineage and intermarriage connected therewith. Knight's
portmanteau having in the meantime arrived, they soon retired to prepare
for dinner, which had been postponed two hours later than the usual time
of that meal.

An arrival was an event in the life of Elfride, now that they were again
in the country, and that of Knight necessarily an engrossing one. And
that evening she went to bed for the first time without thinking of
Stephen at all.

Chapter XVIII

'He heard her musical pants.'

The old tower of West Endelstow Church had reached the last weeks of its
existence. It was to be replaced by a new one from the designs of Mr.
Hewby, the architect who had sent down Stephen. Planks and poles had
arrived in the churchyard, iron bars had been thrust into the venerable
crack extending down the belfry wall to the foundation, the bells had
been taken down, the owls had forsaken this home of their forefathers,
and six iconoclasts in white fustian, to whom a cracked edifice was a
spec