shness. You ought to know better," he said, more sad than
annoyed. "But I forgot that you never knew Captain Anthony," he added
indulgently.

I reminded him that I knew Mrs. Anthony; even before he--an old friend
now--had ever set eyes on her. And as he told me that Mrs. Anthony had
heard of our meetings I wondered whether she would care to see me. Mr.
Powell volunteered no opinion then; but next time we lay in the creek he
said, "She will be very pleased. You had better go to-day."

The afternoon was well advanced before I approached the cottage. The
amenity of a fine day in its decline surrounded me with a beneficent, a
calming influence; I felt it in the silence of the shady lane, in the
pure air, in the blue sky. It is difficult to retain the memory of the
conflicts, miseries, temptations and crimes of men's self-seeking
existence when one is alone with the charming serenity of the unconscious
nature. Breathing the dreamless peace around the picturesque cottage I
was approaching, it seemed to me that it must reign everywhere, over all
the globe of water and land and in the hearts of all the dwellers on this
earth.

Flora came down to the garden gate to meet me, no longer the perversely
tempting, sorrowful, wisp of white mist drifting in the complicated bad
dream of existence. Neither did she look like a forsaken elf. I
stammered out stupidly, "Again in the country, Miss . . . Mrs . . . " She
was very good, returned the pressure of my hand, but we were slightly
embarrassed. Then we laughed a little. Then we became grave.

I am no lover of day-breaks. You know how thin, equivocal, is the light
of the dawn. But she was now her true self, she was like a fine tranquil
afternoon--and not so very far advanced either. A woman not much over
thirty, with a dazzling complexion and a little colour, a lot of hair, a
smooth brow, a fine chin, and only the eyes of the Flora of the old days,
absolutely unchanged.

In the room into which she led me we found a Miss Somebody--I didn't
catch the name,--an unobtrusive, even an indistinct, middle-aged person
in black. A companion. All very proper. She came and went and even sat
down at times in the room, but a little apart, with some sewing. By the
time she had brought in a lighted lamp I had heard all the details which
really matter in this story. Between me and her who was once Flora de
Barral the conversation was not likely to keep strictly to the weather.