y subject out of me! Yours is celestial; mine lamentably human!
And the less must give way to the greater.'

'But is it, in a human sense, and apart from macrocosmic magnitudes,
important?' he inquired, at last attracted by her manner; for he began to
perceive, in spite of his prepossession, that she had really something on
her mind.

'It is as important as personal troubles usually are.'

Notwithstanding her preconceived notion of coming to Swithin as employer
to dependant, as _chatelaine_ to page, she was falling into confidential
intercourse with him. His vast and romantic endeavours lent him a
personal force and charm which she could not but apprehend. In the
presence of the immensities that his young mind had, as it were, brought
down from above to hers, they became unconsciously equal. There was,
moreover, an inborn liking in Lady Constantine to dwell less on her
permanent position as a county lady than on her passing emotions as a
woman.

'I will postpone the matter I came to charge you with,' she resumed,
smiling. 'I must reconsider it. Now I will return.'

'Allow me to show you out through the trees and across the fields?'

She said neither a distinct yes nor no; and, descending the tower, they
threaded the firs and crossed the ploughed field. By an odd coincidence
he remarked, when they drew near the Great House--

'You may possibly be interested in knowing, Lady Constantine, that that
medium-sized star you see over there, low down in the south, is precisely
over Sir Blount Constantine's head in the middle of Africa.'

'How very strange that you should have said so!' she answered. 'You have
broached for me the very subject I had come to speak of.'

'On a domestic matter?' he said, with surprise.

'Yes. What a small matter it seems now, after our astronomical
stupendousness! and yet on my way to you it so far transcended the
ordinary matters of my life as the subject you have led me up to
transcends this. But,' with a little laugh, 'I will endeavour to sink
down to such ephemeral trivialities as human tragedy, and explain, since
I have come. The point is, I want a helper: no woman ever wanted one
more. For days I have wanted a trusty friend who could go on a secret
errand for me. It is necessary that my messenger should be educated,
should be intelligent, should be silent as the grave. Do you give me
your solemn promise as to the last point, if I confide in you?'

'Most emphatically, L