to speak. I know
you despise me unutterably."

"You are quite mistaken. I admire you very much."

"What--my skill? Or my dress?"

"Everything. You have become precisely what you were meant to be."

"Oh, the scorn of that!"

"I beg you not to think it for a moment. There was a time when I might
have found a foolish pleasure in speaking to you with sarcasm. But that
has long gone by."

"What am I, then?"

"An English lady--with rather more intellect than most."

Eve flushed with satisfaction.

"It's more than kind of you to say that. But you always had a generous
spirit. I never thanked you. Not one poor word. I was cowardly--afraid
to write. And you didn't care for my thanks."

"I do now."

"Then I thank you. With all my heart, again and again!"

Her voice trembled under fulness of meaning.

"You find life pleasant?"

"You do, I hope?" she answered, as they paced on.

"Not unpleasant, at all events. I am no longer slaving under the iron
gods. I like my work, and it promises to reward me."

Eve made a remark about a flower-bed. Then her voice subdued again.

"How do you look back on your great venture--your attempt to make the
most that could be made of a year in your life?"

"Quite contentedly. It was worth doing, and is worth remembering."

"Remember, if you care to," Eve resumed, "that all I am and have I owe
to you. I was all but lost--all but a miserable captive for the rest of
my life. You came and ransomed me. A less generous man would have
spoilt his work at the last moment. But you were large minded enough to
support my weakness till I was safe."

Hilliard smiled for answer.

"You and Robert are friends again?"

"Perfectly."

She turned, and they rejoined the company.

A week later Hilliard went down into the country, to a quiet spot where
he now and then refreshed his mind after toil in Birmingham. He slept
at a cottage, and on the Sunday morning walked idly about the lanes.

A white frost had suddenly hastened the slow decay of mellow autumn.
Low on the landscape lay a soft mist, dense enough to conceal
everything at twenty yards away, but suffused with golden sunlight;
overhead shone the clear blue sky. Roadside trees and hedges, their
rich tints softened by the medium through which they were discerned,
threw shadows of exquisite faintness. A perfect quiet possessed the
air, but from every branch, as though shaken by some invisible hand,
dead foliage dropped to earth in a cont