ore certain light there was no doubt that it was a woman who stood
there by the statues, guarding the first early beauties of the garden.
Everything was pearl-grey, save where, high above the water of the
fountain that stood in the centre of the lawn, the sky had broken into
a little lake of the palest blue and this was reflected in the still
mirror of the fountain--but it _was_ a woman. He could see the outline
of her form--the bend of her neck as she turned with her face to the
house, the straight line of her arms as they tell at her sides. And,
as he looked, his heart began to beat thickly. He seemed to recognise
that carriage of the body from the hips, the fling-back of the head as
she stared towards the windows.

The light of the dawn was breaking over the garden, the chorus of the
birds was loud in the trees, and he knew that it was no dream.

He glanced for a moment at his father, and then crept softly from the
room. He found one of the nurses making tea over a spirit-lamp in the
dressing-room and asked her to take his place.

The house was perfectly silent as he opened the French window of the
drawing-room and stepped on to the lawn. The grass was heavy with dew
and the fresh air beat about his face; he had never known anything
quite so fresh--the air, the grass, the trees, the birds' song like the
sound of hidden waters tumbling on to some unseen rock.

Her face was turned away from him and his feet made no sound on the
grass. He came perfectly silently towards her, and then when he saw
that it had indeed been no imagination but that it was reality, and
when he knew all that her coming there meant and what it implied, for
moment his limbs shook so that he could scarcely stand. Then he
laughed a little and said "Mary!"

She turned with a little cry, and when she saw who it was the crimson
flooded her face, changing it as the rising sun was soon to change the
grey of the sea and the garden.

"Oh!" she cried, "I didn't know--I didn't mean. I----"

"It is going to be a lovely day," he said quietly, "the sun will be up
in a moment. I have been watching you from my father's window."

"Oh! You mustn't!" she cried eagerly. "I thought that I was
safe--absolutely; I was here quite by chance--really I was--I couldn't
sleep, and I thought that I would watch the sunrise over the sea--and I
went down to the beach--and then--well, there was the little wood by
your garden, and it was so wonderfully still and