l lay at random among the black heaps. Beyond, the dwellings, very
dense on the river flat, looked like black, poisonous herbage, in thick
rows and crowded beds, stretching right away, broken now and then by
taller plants, right to where the river glistened in a hieroglyph across
the country. The steep scarp cliffs across the river looked puny. Great
stretches of country darkened with trees and faintly brightened with
corn-land, spread towards the haze, where the hills rose blue beyond
grey.

"It is comforting," said Mrs. Dawes, "to think the town goes no farther.
It is only a LITTLE sore upon the country yet."

"A little scab," Paul said.

She shivered. She loathed the town. Looking drearily across at the
country which was forbidden her, her impassive face, pale and hostile,
she reminded Paul of one of the bitter, remorseful angels.

"But the town's all right," he said; "it's only temporary. This is the
crude, clumsy make-shift we've practised on, till we find out what the
idea is. The town will come all right."

The pigeons in the pockets of rock, among the perched bushes, cooed
comfortably. To the left the large church of St. Mary rose into space,
to keep close company with the Castle, above the heaped rubble of the
town. Mrs. Dawes smiled brightly as she looked across the country.

"I feel better," she said.

"Thank you," he replied. "Great compliment!"

"Oh, my brother!" she laughed.

"H'm! that's snatching back with the left hand what you gave with the
right, and no mistake," he said.

She laughed in amusement at him.

"But what was the matter with you?" he asked. "I know you were brooding
something special. I can see the stamp of it on your face yet."

"I think I will not tell you," she said.

"All right, hug it," he answered.

She flushed and bit her lip.

"No," she said, "it was the girls."

"What about 'em?" Paul asked.

"They have been plotting something for a week now, and to-day they seem
particularly full of it. All alike; they insult me with their secrecy."

"Do they?" he asked in concern.

"I should not mind," she went on, in the metallic, angry tone, "if they
did not thrust it into my face--the fact that they have a secret."

"Just like women," said he.

"It is hateful, their mean gloating," she said intensely.

Paul was silent. He knew what the girls gloated over. He was sorry to be
the cause of this new dissension.

"They can have all the secrets in the world," she went on