t the heels of Erskine's
unfortunate allusion to her power of enjoying herself.

"I hope I am not paining you," he said earnestly.

"I don't know what you are talking about," she said, standing erect with
sudden impatience. "You seem to think that it is very easy to pain me."

"No," he said timidly, puzzled by the effect he had produced. "I fear
you misunderstand me. I am very awkward. Perhaps I had better say no
more." Gertrude, by turning away to put up her cue, signified that that
was a point for him to consider; she not intending to trouble herself
about it. When she faced him again, he was motionless and dejected, with
a wistful expression like that of a dog that has proffered a caress and
received a kick. Remorse, and a vague sense that there was something
base in her attitude towards him, overcame her. She looked at him for an
instant and left the room.

The look excited him. He did not understand it, nor attempt to
understand it; but it was a look that he had never before seen in
her face or in that of any other woman. It struck him as a momentary
revelation of what he had written of in "The Patriot Martyrs" as

"The glorious mystery of a woman's heart,"

and it made him feel unfit for ordinary social intercourse. He hastened
from the house, walked swiftly down the avenue to the lodge, where he
kept his bicycle, left word there that he was going for an excursion and
should probably not return in time for dinner, mounted, and sped away
recklessly along the Riverside Road. In less than two minutes he passed
the gate of Sallust's House, where he nearly ran over an old woman laden
with a basket of coals, who put down her burthen to scream curses after
him. Warned by this that his headlong pace was dangerous, he slackened
it a little, and presently saw Trefusis lying prone on the river bank,
with his cheeks propped on his elbows, reading intently. Erskine,
who had presented him, a few days before, with a copy of "The Patriot
Martyrs and other Poems," tried to catch a glimpse of the book over
which Trefusis was so serious. It was a Blue Book, full of figures.
Erskine rode on in disgust, consoling himself with the recollection of
Gertrude's face.

The highway now swerved inland from the river, and rose to a steep
acclivity, at the brow of which he turned and looked back. The light
was growing ruddy, and the shadows were lengthening. Trefusis was still
prostrate in the meadow, and the old woman was in a field, g