he high bracken. She kept along under the wall in the direction
of the river, but came to no gate, and began to be afraid that she was
going wrong. She could hear the river on the other side, and looked for
some place where she could climb and see exactly where she was. An old
ash-tree tempted her. Scrambling up into its fork, she could just see
over. There was the little river within twenty yards, its clear dark
water running between thick foliage. On its bank lay a huge stone
balanced on another stone still more huge. And with his back to this
stone stood the boy, his rod leaning beside him. And there, on the
ground, her arms resting on her knees, her chin on her hands, that girl
sat looking up. How eager his eyes now--how different from the brooding
eyes of yesterday!

"So, you see, that was all. You might forgive me, Sylvia!"

And to Anna it seemed verily as if those two young faces formed suddenly
but one--the face of youth.

If she had stayed there looking for all time, she could not have had
graven on her heart a vision more indelible. Vision of Spring, of all
that was gone from her for ever! She shrank back out of the fork of the
old ash-tree, and, like a stricken beast, went hurrying, stumbling away,
amongst the stones and bracken. She ran thus perhaps a quarter of a
mile, then threw up her arms, fell down amongst the fern, and lay there
on her face. At first her heart hurt her so that she felt nothing but
that physical pain. If she could have died! But she knew it was nothing
but breathlessness. It left her, and that which took its place she tried
to drive away by pressing her breast against the ground, by clutching
the stalks of the bracken--an ache, an emptiness too dreadful! Youth to
youth! He was gone from her--and she was alone again! She did not cry.
What good in crying? But gusts of shame kept sweeping through her; shame
and rage. So this was all she was worth! The sun struck hot on her back
in that lair of tangled fern, where she had fallen; she felt faint and
sick. She had not known till now quite what this passion for the boy had
meant to her; how much of her very belief in herself was bound up with
it; how much clinging to her own youth. What bitterness! One soft slip
of a white girl--one YOUNG thing--and she had become as nothing! But
was that true? Could she not even now wrench him back to her with the
passion that this child knew nothing of! Surely! Oh, surely! Let him
but once taste the raptur