looked up from
the last page of the book with eyes that swam a little, to find herself
at the broken wooden gate of a low, white house, shabbily blindless, and
a long way off its last painting and whitewashing.

She paid for the carriage and dismissed it. She would walk back to the
station with _him_. She passed in at the rickety gate and up the flagged
path, and a bell in answer to her touch jangled loudly, as bells do in
empty houses.

Her dress was greeny, with lace about it of the same colour as very nice
biscuits, and her hat seemed to be made entirely of yellow roses. She
was not unconscious of these facts.

Steps sounded within, and they, like the bell, seemed to sound in an
empty house. The door opened, and there was Rupert. Sybil's lips were
half-parted in a smile that should match the glow of gladness that must
shine on his face when he saw her--Her--the unattainable, the
unapproachable, at his very door. But her smile died away, for his face
was grave. Only in his eyes something that was bright and fierce and
like a flame leapt up and shone a moment.

"You!" he said.

And Sybil answered as most people do to such questions: "Yes, me." There
was a pause: her eyes wandered from his to the blank face of the house,
the tangle of the untidy garden. "Mayn't I come in?" she asked.

"Yes; oh yes, come in!"

She crossed the threshold--the doorstep was dank with green mould--and
followed him into a room. It was a large room, and perfectly bare: no
carpet, no curtains, no pictures. Loose bricks were arranged as a
fender, and dead embers strewed the hearth. There was a table; there was
a chair; there were scattered papers, pens, and ink. From the window one
saw the neglected garden, and beyond it the round shoulders of the
hills.

He drew forward the one chair, and she sat down. He stood with his back
to the fireless grate.

"You are very, very pretty," he said suddenly. And the explanation of
his disappearance suddenly struck her like a blow between the eyes. But
she was not afraid. When all a woman's thoughts, day and night for a
year, have been given to one man, she is not afraid of him; no, not even
if he be what Sybil for one moment feared that this man was. He read the
fear in her eyes.

"No, I'm not mad," he said. "Sybil, I'm very glad you came. Come to
think of it, I'm very glad to see you. It is better than writing. I was
just going to write out everything, as well as I could. I expect I
should hav