Were there given on paper to these astronomical exercitations of St.
Cleeve a space proportionable to that occupied by his year with Viviette
at Welland, this narrative would treble its length; but not a single
additional glimpse would be afforded of Swithin in his relations with old
emotions. In these experiments with tubes and glasses, important as they
were to human intellect, there was little food for the sympathetic
instincts which create the changes in a life. That which is the
foreground and measuring base of one perspective draught may be the
vanishing-point of another perspective draught, while yet they are both
draughts of the same thing. Swithin's doings and discoveries in the
southern sidereal system were, no doubt, incidents of the highest
importance to him; and yet from an intersocial point of view they served
but the humble purpose of killing time, while other doings, more nearly
allied to his heart than to his understanding, developed themselves at
home.

In the intervals between his professional occupations he took walks over
the sand-flats near, or among the farms which were gradually
overspreading the country in the vicinity of Cape Town. He grew familiar
with the outline of Table Mountain, and the fleecy 'Devil's Table-Cloth'
which used to settle on its top when the wind was south-east. On these
promenades he would more particularly think of Viviette, and of that
curious pathetic chapter in his life with her which seemed to have wound
itself up and ended for ever. Those scenes were rapidly receding into
distance, and the intensity of his sentiment regarding them had
proportionately abated. He felt that there had been something wrong
therein, and yet he could not exactly define the boundary of the wrong.
Viviette's sad and amazing sequel to that chapter had still a fearful,
catastrophic aspect in his eyes; but instead of musing over it and its
bearings he shunned the subject, as we shun by night the shady scene of a
disaster, and keep to the open road.

He sometimes contemplated her apart from the past--leading her life in
the Cathedral Close at Melchester; and wondered how often she looked
south and thought of where he was.

On one of these afternoon walks in the neighbourhood of the Royal
Observatory he turned and gazed towards the signal-post on the Lion's
Rump. This was a high promontory to the north-west of Table Mountain,
and overlooked Table Bay. Before his eyes had left the scene