s with the wide
range of wood and plain that it commanded. After a very wet September,
the October days were now following each other in a settled and sunny
peace. The great woods of the Chilterns, just yellowing towards that
full golden moment--short, like all perfection,--which only beeches
know, rolled down the hill-slopes to the plain, their curving lines cut
here and there by straight fir stems, drawn clear and dark on the pale
background of sky and lowland. In the park, immediately below the
window, groups of wild cherry and of a slender-leaved maple made spots
of "flame and amethyst" on the smooth falling lawns; the deer wandered
and fed, and the squirrels were playing and feasting among the beech
nuts.

Since Aldous and his poor sister had brought him home from the Bethnal
Green hall in which the Land Reform Conference had been held, Hallin had
spoken little, except in delirium, and that little had been marked by
deep and painful depression. But this morning, when Aldous was summoned
by the nurse, and found him propped up by the window, in front of the
great view, he saw gracious signs of change. Death, indeed, already in
possession, looked from the blue eyes so plainly that Aldous, on his
first entrance, had need of all his own strength of will to keep his
composure. But with the certainty of that great release, and with the
abandonment of all physical and mental struggle--the struggle of a
lifetime--Hallin seemed to-day to have recovered something of his
characteristic serenity and blitheness--the temper which had made him
the leader of his Oxford contemporaries, and the dear comrade of his
friend's life.

When Aldous came in, Hallin smiled and lifted a feeble hand towards the
park and the woods.

"Could it have greeted me more kindly," he said, in his whispering
voice, "for the end?"

Aldous sat down beside him, pressing his hand, and there was silence
till Hallin spoke again.

"You will keep this sitting-room, Aldous?"

"Always."

"I am glad. I have known you in it so long. What good talks we have had
here in the old hot days! I was hot, at least, and you bore with me.
Land Reform--Church Reform--Wages Reform--we have threshed them all out
in this room. Do you remember that night I kept you up till it was too
late to go to bed, talking over my Church plans? How full I was of
it!--the Church that was to be the people--reflecting their life, their
differences--governed by them--growing with them. You