d
exhausted all their violence on certain specific occasions. But this
plain was like a realist mind with an intense consciousness of cause and
effect. There would blow a warning wind before the storm. It would be
visible afar off in its coming, as a darkness, a flaw on the horizon;
and when it had scourged the plain it would be seen for long travelling
on towards the mainland. There would be no illusion that anything
happens suddenly or that anything disappears. Here the long preparation
of earth's events and their endurance would be evident. It would breed
people like Marion, in whom a sense of the bearing of the past on the
present was so powerful that it was often difficult to know of what she
was speaking, and whether the tale she was telling of Richard referred
to yesterday or his boyhood; that it was impossible to say whether she
smiled because of memory or hope when she leaned forward and said, "This
is Kerith Island."

"Mhm," said Ellen, since it was not her own country; "it's verra flat."
And then, realising that she was belittling beauty, she exclaimed, "I
must have said that for the sake of being disagreeable. I think it's
fine, though very different from Scotland. But after all, why should
everything be like Scotland? There's no real reason. I don't see where
Richard's going to work, though."

"Three miles along the road and two to the right. You can see the works
from our windows."

"Of course you could," said Ellen sourly; and explained, "When I
couldn't see the works I made up a sort of story for myself, about the
works being new ones, and the firm not being able to get them finished
in time for Richard to start work, so that we had him hanging about the
house all to ourselves. That was silly. Of course. But I am silly about
him. I suppose I will soon get over it."

"I will hate you if you do," answered Marion, "for I never have."

The island and its creek fell away to the south. The train ran now
across the marshes, flat and green, chequered with dykes, confined to
the right by the steep brim of a sea-wall. To the left a line of little
hills gained height. They fell back in an amphitheatre, and a farmhouse
turned to the sun a garden more austere with the salt air than farmhouse
gardens commonly are, and behind it, in the shelter of the curved green
escarpment, some tall trees stood among the pastures. The hills rose
again to an overhanging steepness and broke down to a gap full of the
purples of b