ance, whatever blows it might choose to strike--that seemed to
be the best, the only creed left to him.

When he reached the Scarfedale house, and a gardener had taken his
horse, the maid who opened the door told him he would find Lady
Constance on the lawn. The old ladies were out driving.

Very decent of the old ladies, he thought, as he followed the path into
the garden.

There she was!--her light form lost, almost, in a deep chair, under a
lime-tree. The garden was a tangle of late blooming flowers; everything
growing rank and fast, as though to get as much out of the soil and the
sun as possible, before the first frost made execution. It was
surrounded by old red walls that held the dropping sun, and it was full
of droning bees, and wagtails stepping daintily over the lawns.

Connie rose and came towards him. She was in black with pale pink roses
in her hat. In spite of her height, she seemed to him the slightest,
gracefullest thing, and as she neared him, she lifted her deep brown
eyes, and it was as though he had never seen before how beautiful
they were.

"It was kind of you to come!" she said shyly.

He made no reply, till she had placed him beside her under the lime.
Then he looked round him, a smile twitching his lip.

"Your aunts are not at home?"

"No. They have gone for their drive. Did you wish to see them?"

"I am in terror of your Aunt Winifred. She and I had many ructions when
I was small. She thought our keepers used to shoot her cats."

"They probably did!"

"Of course. But a keeper who told the truth about it would have no
moral sense."

They both laughed, looking into each other's faces with a sudden sense
of relief from tension. After all the tragedy and the pain, there they
were, still young, still in the same world together. And the sun was
still shining and flowers blooming. Yet, all the same, there was no
thought of any renewal of their old relation on either side. Something
unexpressed, yet apparently final, seemed to stand between them;
differing very much in his mind from the something in hers, yet equally
potent. She, who had gone through agonies of far too tender pity for
him, felt now a touch of something chill and stern in the circumstance
surrounding him that seemed to put her aside. "This is not your
business," it seemed to say; so that she saw herself as an inexperienced
child playing with that incalculable thing--the male. Attempts at
sympathy or advice died away--she