ften necessary to go a long way
round. But in time they were through this too, and really out on the
top. Here there was nothing but the Dunes, wide, curving land, that
stretched away and away, a tableland of little hollows and hills, like
some sea whose waves have been consolidated; near at hand its colours
were warm, if not vivid, but in the far distance it grew paler as the
vegetation became less and less, till, far away, almost beyond sight,
it failed to grey helm grass, and then altogether ceased, leaving the
sand bare. Behind lay the trees through which they had come, sloping
downwards in banks of cool shadows to the map-like land and the
distant town below; away on right and left were other groups of trees,
on sides of hills and in rounded hollows, looking small enough from
here, but in reality woods of some size. Here there was nothing; but,
above, a great blue sky, which seemed very close; and, underfoot,
low-growing Dune roses and wild thyme which filled the warm, still air
with its matchless scent; nothing but these, and space, and sunshine,
and silence.

Julia stopped and looked round, drawing in her breath; she had found
what she had come to see--what, perhaps, she had been vaguely wanting
to find for a long time.

"Isn't it good?" she said at last. "Did you know there was so much
room--so much room anywhere?"

Rawson-Clew looked in the direction she did; he had seen so much of
the world, and she had seen so little of it--that is, of the part
which is solitary and beautiful. Yet he felt something of her
enthusiasm for this sunny, empty place--than which he had seen many
finer things every year of his life.

Perhaps this thought occurred to her, for she turned to him rather
wistfully: "I expect it does not seem very much to you," she said;
"you have seen such a great deal."

"I do not remember to have seen anything quite like this," he
answered; "and if I had, what then? One does not get tired of things."

Julia looked at him thoughtfully. "I wonder," she said, "if one would?
If one would get weary of it, and want to go back to the other kind of
life?"

She was not thinking of Dune country, rather of the simple life it
represented to her just then. Rawson-Clew caught the note of
seriousness in her tone and reminded her that thought for the past or
future was no part of a holiday. "Remember," he said, "you are to-day
to emulate dogs and boys."

She laughed. "How am I to begin?" she asked. "How will