n upon them. He looked up as she came in, and the expression of his
eyes drew her to him irresistibly.

'Were you asleep, Robert? Do come to bed!'

He sat up, and with a pathetic gesture held out his arm to her. She came
on to his knee, putting her white arms round his neck, while he leant
his head against her breast.

'Are you tired with all your walking to-day?' she said presently, a pang
at her heart.

'I am tired,' he said, 'but not with walking.'

'Does your book worry you? You shouldn't work so hard, Robert--you
shouldn't!'

He started.

'Don't talk, of it. Don't let us talk or think at all, only feel!'

And he tightened his arms round her, happy once more for a mordent in
this environment of a perfect love. There was silence for a few moments,
Catherine feeling more and more disturbed and anxious.

'Think of your mountains,' he said presently, his eyes still pressed
against her, 'of High Fell, and the moonlight, and the house where Mary
Backhouse died. Oh! Catherine, I see you still, and shall always see
you, as I saw you then, my angel of healing and of grace!'

'I too have been thinking of her tonight,' said Catherine softly, 'and
of the walk to Shanmoor. This evening in the garden it seemed to me as
though there were Westmoreland scents in the air! I was haunted by a
vision of bracken, and rocks, and sheep browsing up the fell slopes.'

'Oh for a breath of the wind on High Fell!' cried Robert,--it was so new
to her, the dear voice with his accent in it, of yearning depression!
'I want more of the spirit of the mountains, their serenity, their
strength. Say me that Duddon sonnet you used to say to me there, as you
said it to me that last Sunday before our wedding, when we walked up
the Shanmoor road to say good-by to that blessed spot. Oh! how I sit and
think of it sometimes, when life seems to be going crookedly, that rock
on the fell-side where I found you, and caught you, and snared you, my
dove, for ever.'

And Catherine, whose mere voice was as balm to this man of many
impulses, repeated to him, softly in the midnight silence, those noble
lines in which Wordsworth has expressed, with the reserve and yet the
strength of the great poet, the loftiest yearning of the purest hearts--

Enough, if something from our hand have power
To live and move, and serve the future hour,
And if, as towards the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,