Two on a Tower

across the field towards the pillar; and not many days later Swithin, who had never come to t

peech, for her commands to him not to recognize her agency or patronage still p

ather not;

le stars in the Lion and in the Virgin, where I had seen onl

-night, but I will some time this week. Yet only this once, to try the

this announcement. ‘Hilton and Pimm’s

much

hut and dome, and done the other fixing, h

hardly do. Come to the house for it this evening. But no, no — you must not come openly; such is the world. Come to the window — the win

Constantine,’ s

rbed his thoughts that he did not trouble himself seriously to conjecture the why and wherefore of her secrecy. If he casually thought of it, he set it down in

ittle parcel — bank-notes, apparently. He knew the hand, and held it long enough to press it to his lips, the only form which had ever occurred to him of expressing his gratitude to her without the incumbrance of clumsy words, a vehicle at t

rfe

he at last said. ‘It makes no difference

ed up like a nun; whereupon they left the t

did not take the offered support just then; but when they were ascending the prehistoric earthwork, under the

their griefs from the funereal boughs overhead, and a few twigs scratching the pillar w

pered. ‘I wonder you can keep in the path. Man

eling his way with his hands, he suddenly lef

is this?’ sh

new wood ca

ne of a little house, not unlike

nt on, ‘as I thought you might come an

med with sensitive promptness. ‘There are social

h to my discredit

I should enlighten you. Well, I see this is the hut. But I am m

ed her up the winding staircase to the temple of that

ere its base descended to the parapet there were half a dozen iron balls, precisely like cannon-shot, standing loosely in a groove, and on these the dome rested its whole weight. In the side of the dome was a slit, through whic

ne part of the sky thro

ike thunder. Instead of the star Polaris, which had first been peeping in through the slit, there now appeared the count

le she even clapped her hands just once

l YOURS, Lady

defect which can soon be rem

th — the

ll be yours — a

protested; i

Already they are reputed to be yours, and they must be made yours. There is no help for it. If ever’ (here her voice lost some firmness) — ‘if ever you go away from me — from this place, I

share my fame — supposing I get any, which I may die before doing — it would be a little compensati

y n

— combined, perhaps, with a little warm

riend of kind

should lik

re I could be that, publicly; or I a m

r you a man, dear

your fame and your science all to you

pression of her melancholy thus and now she found much pleasure — c

hung to-night,’ she said l

lunged down to that at other times invisible multitude in the back rows of the celestial theatre: remote layers of constellations whose shapes were new and singular; pretty twinklers

hat for one star that lighted them in their labours, there were a hundred as good behind trying to do so! . . . I have a feeling for this instrument not unlike the awe I should feel in the presence of a great magician in

I also fear it, for what I know is there, but cannot see, as one naturally fears the presence of a vast formless something that only reveals a

ness. At night, when human discords and harmonies are hushed, in a general sense, for the greater part of twelve hours, there is nothing to moderate the blow with which the infinitely great, the stellar universe, strikes down upon the infinitely little, the mind of the beholder; and this was the case now. Having got closer to immensity th

fected by the telescope, and he was well away in space, she felt her influence over him diminishing to nothing. He was quite unconscious of h

The stars moved on, the end of the telescope followed, but their tongues stood still. To expect that he wa

scope, and brought himself back to the ear

in would have felt to be exquisite. ‘I feel that I have been so foolish as to put in your hands a

on to be able to publish it to the world. What, are you going? I

y is published to the