ed to be attached to it
somehow, and at once grown more substantial. Perhaps they had been in
the drawing-room at the same moment; perhaps they had passed each other
on the stairs; at any rate they knew some of the same people. They
looked one another up and down with new interest. But they could do no
more than look at each other, for there was no time to enjoy the fruits
of the discovery. The donkeys were advancing, and it was advisable to
begin the descent immediately, for the night fell so quickly that it
would be dark before they were home again.

Accordingly, remounting in order, they filed off down the hillside.
Scraps of talk came floating back from one to another. There were jokes
to begin with, and laughter; some walked part of the way, and picked
flowers, and sent stones bounding before them.

"Who writes the best Latin verse in your college, Hirst?" Mr. Elliot
called back incongruously, and Mr. Hirst returned that he had no idea.

The dusk fell as suddenly as the natives had warned them, the hollows
of the mountain on either side filling up with darkness and the path
becoming so dim that it was surprising to hear the donkeys' hooves still
striking on hard rock. Silence fell upon one, and then upon another,
until they were all silent, their minds spilling out into the deep blue
air. The way seemed shorter in the dark than in the day; and soon the
lights of the town were seen on the flat far beneath them.

Suddenly some one cried, "Ah!"

In a moment the slow yellow drop rose again from the plain below; it
rose, paused, opened like a flower, and fell in a shower of drops.

"Fireworks," they cried.

Another went up more quickly; and then another; they could almost hear
it twist and roar.

"Some Saint's day, I suppose," said a voice. The rush and embrace of
the rockets as they soared up into the air seemed like the fiery way in
which lovers suddenly rose and united, leaving the crowd gazing up at
them with strained white faces. But Susan and Arthur, riding down the
hill, never said a word to each other, and kept accurately apart.

Then the fireworks became erratic, and soon they ceased altogether, and
the rest of the journey was made almost in darkness, the mountain being
a great shadow behind them, and bushes and trees little shadows which
threw darkness across the road. Among the plane-trees they separated,
bundling into carriages and driving off, without saying good-night, or
saying it only in a half