Beggars on Horseback

from a contem

nd drew not only great compassion, but tears, from most of the spectators. When she got up about seven steps of the ladder, she turned herself upon it and had a little trembling, saying: 'I am afraid I shall fall.' After she had turned herself upon the ladder, the Rev. Mr. Le Petyt, who attended her, asked whether she had anything to say to the public. She said yes, and made a speech to the following purport: 'That, as she was then going to appear before a just God, she did not know that the powders, which were believed to be the death of her father, would have done him any harm, therefore she was innocently the cause of his death, but as she hoped for mercy, what she had done had been in innocence and love.' Then she stooped towards Mr. Le Petyt and she was seen to be remarkably eager in taking the parting kiss from him, which she

REATE

REATE

st settled on him he fought it wildly; then succeeded a numbed condition of the nerves, when will and reason lay dormant, and he surrendered

the coast of Provence by ship, to strike up inland on foot. In spite of himself, his surroundings began to soothe him, justifying the instinct which led him, and that had its root deeper than he suspected. Bernardy's mother had been a Proven?ale, and it was in one of the little

t so surely lose grip. His peculiar and vivid genius, though technically the joy of his fellow writers, never lost a quality of uncanny vision that sometimes disconcerted an age given over to the flamboyance of Byron, and this quality was the natural outcome of his withdrawal, as a child, into his secret life. That life was a complicated and delicate thing, no mere floating

s, of shutters flung wide like wings, of courtyards that are wells of blue shadow, and towers that stand up, golden-white, into the sunshine. Here Bernardy would come to a town perched, eagle-wise upon a crag, with a forest of irregular turrets piercing the sky; there to a little city which fitted over some rounded mountain-top like a cap, the arching outline of its roofs

ove them; these mountains that at sunsetting were stained a burning copper filmed with amethyst-all seemed to Bernardy to be under a spell, caught in a web of magic as real, though not as visible, as the web of dappled shado

o-lucky nature could have extracted all the savour possible out of what remained to him of life, and left what was to come on the knees of the gods-Bernardy was too ardent a devotee of life, and life, as he understood it, was a comprehensive term. It meant the training and enjoyment of every faculty, the criti

well worth while they were. Taken as a whole they outweighed the fondest woman in the world, and that though Bernardy had been a fine lover. Yet it was because of a woman that he was to kill himself three weeks from now, and the fantast

not in the least clever, and Bernardy, who had never met anyone like her before, fell madly in love. The combination of his passion; of a rival deeply bitten with romanticism and a sense of his own importance and of the high-flown ideas of the period, resulted in a violent quarrel and what was then a favoured species of

rnt-out landscape of the moon. At last he came to the mouth of a gorge, one side of it rising up sheer into the sunlight, while the other seemed to hang to the earth like a dark curtain. Looking up, Bernardy saw, perched at the rim of the sunlit cliff, a little town. In some places its sloping flanks were built right over the edge, as though they had been poured out, while molten, from a giant spoon. It was so many hundred feet above him that he could only just distinguish it was a town, and not a mere hu

shut lids at the little town which he now saw dark against the sky. He lay, idly counting the towers of it, till

sed by anything that was past, the confiding, expectant attitude of a young child. He had forgotten nothing, it was rather that all his old arrangement of values had been swept aside, leaving him free to assess things anew. And, although, for all he could remember, his sleep

of the painted walls," he turned to the right, and walked several paces before the strangeness of his own words struck him. "What can I have meant?" he asked himself

the more he remembered it, and details crowded on him. He walked down the alley at the side, and found a stone stairw

" he thought. "Well, what matter

iar, but not until he turned into th

he cried aloud

nt in the glare of the sun, sat a row of burnt-out old men with shrivelled throats, and on the steps of the fountain were two old women in black, one wearing a white cap of folded wings, the other the wide-brimmed black straw hat common to the peasantry. The lady of the hat plunged her brown old fingers into the thin arc of water, and Bernardy saw how the drops that clung to her hand glittered like diamonds before she shook them off to pit the dust with pock-marks. With that intense sympathy which had done much to make him an artist, Bernardy tried for a moment to think himself into the mind of the black-hatted old w

d-a rococo affair decked with rows of plaster saints on painted brackets, each with its little bunch of flowers in a china mug in front of it. Beneath all the superfluous decoration there was a pleasing austerity and sturdiness of line; solid pillars and a low-groined roof made a square-set, beetle-browed little building,

and the tightest of trousers, held the other post of honour, and nearer the spectators, though facing away from them to the little Christ-Child, were ranged the shepherds, with-surely an innovation-their wives. The shepherds themselves supplied the crowning touch, for they wore real knitted stockings of worsted, and shoes with stitched leather soles, a fact admirably displayed by the kneeling position of their wearers. The wives held little baskets full of beads, meant to represent eggs; and woolly lambs with red-cotton tongues stood

attering, they went past him, slowly and stiffly, with the uneven clumping of old feet. Som

che, and with the swift transition of the South, she stop

'est le bon Jésus,

of something that is at another angle, a differently tilted spiritual plane, so to speak, from our own, and for which our minds would, ordinarily, need a different focus. The old woman had torn a peephole for Edmond-perhaps, for all he knew, in that moment of sympathetic concentration in the Square, their personalities had mingled, and so made him sens

Jésus, qui d

ile White Cap was recognizing all her acquaintances, so to speak, and hailing them by name, the other old woman stared straight in front of her, repeating her phrase very fast, over and over

said, "tu sais, c'est l'

he watched the shadow thrown by the opposite range creep up towards him, the edge of it in deeply curved waves, like a purple tide. The chill of sunset was in the air when he made his way to the inn, and he noted that, although the sight of a stranger must be of the utmost rarity, he excited no comment. Could it be, he wondered, that they instinctively knew hi

ories of sitting enthroned in just such a castle as this. He remembered, too, that there had always been something he was not allowed to know-was it a door that had bee

not old enough to remember it very distinctly, but she believed Mademoiselle had met with trouble, which was why she went away. After all, it was natural, she had red blood in her, both the old Seigneur and his father having married peasant girls. If Monsieur was interested in such things old Marie, who had been Mademoiselle de Clerissac's nurse, still lived in a room in th

s set in a peculiar pattern. It flashed on Bernardy that it led to the room he had never been allowed to enter-he even remembered the scar where one nail was missing. Pushing up the latch, he opened the door and passed through, the light of

suggestive of a baby. Behind her, wrapped in the soft shadow, with fugitive gleams of firelight bringing out now a cheekbone, now the curve of chin, or of breast, stood a much younger woman-she seemed about thirty or perhaps a little more. They gazed at Bernardy in a calm silence for several seconds, while he stared at them. The

oven?al twang was blurred into softness. "My grandmother is very

was the old woman who broke the silence. She seemed to be st

she said, slowly and clearly,

er-covered book, which she handed to him in silence. The old woman had closed her reddish lids, thickly woven over with small, raised veins, and there was nothing left for Bernardy but to take the packet and go to his own room. He found it easil

ry brief, and the first bore a dat

was vexed with me to-day because the soup was too thin. It was the second straining from the same fowl, but we could not afford to kill an

was written the

lerissacs have lost their wealth that is no reason why they should lose their manners. I had a fresh fowl killed and wore my

ore the next entry. Bernar

m no daughter of his, but I cannot see what I have done that is dreadful. I have done right-I am a woman now, and I know. How could it have been better for me to grow old and thin and never give to anyone? It is always good to give. I am leaving this behind me in the secret shelf of my cupboard, with all the letters I wrote him-the ones he gave me back and the ones I nev

de Ber

de Clerissac, thanking him for taking herself and old Marie out driving in his post-chaise, suggesting an hou

violet-bed I was telling you of I will thank you in person. Papa says would you like one of Minèrve's next litter, but I say you will not

de

of the letter next in sequ

fear it is sadly uncultured after what you are used to, but I too love the Proven?al songs. You suggest Sunday evening to come and begin translating them into French, that would suit us admirably. My father is, alas! in bed wi

missing, and Bernardy p

now, I hope you have never made any other woman feel what I do. Every one must adore you, but only I must love you. There, I have said it! Edmund,

ndi

frightened ch

as it is, and last night-Edmund, you made me feel ashamed. It was not like kissing, it was as though you

ndi

and the key ha

regret the days before we knew we loved? Everything was in a golden mist like you see in the valley at sunrise, and now I keep on feeling I do not understand you. Why do you say you cannot tell your father you love me? I am well-born, though it i

If thinking about me adds to your unhappiness, I can even say-do not think about me. I can understand you cannot marry unless your fiancée has a do

d-the letters he had given back. Nex

d. I love you all the more now I know you are not what I thought. You are not a god or even a hero, you are a man, and so you are a child-my child, whose head I held on my breast. You have told me to write to you if I need your help. How can that be? All that is left to me is to live out m

went on with

nd something beats out. 'I want you, I want you.' My heart broke when you wrote me your last note and I had to reply cheerfully

etters to Milord was wri

to do for the best, and now Papa says I shall not stay here till what he calls my shame is born. I will not stay where my hope and my joy is called my shame, and though I would never ask you anything for myself, I mu

e de Cl

to Marie Bernardy. It had been opened, but inside was an enclosure of which the seals w

you beneath my heart. There I heard from his priest-brother that he had been killed hunting, and there you were born. So you are mine, you belong to no one but me. Listen, my son. Life is good, but a clean death is good too. Never be afraid of one or the other. And when you read this in the home that was mine, put fear away and be a man. Find the one with whom you can face whatever comes without flinching, and when you have found her, never let her go till your arms must loose for good. My son, I was wrong to say that hearts went dead, they are

r Mo

were still velvety with shadow, but beyond the ramparts the delicate pallor of dawn was already tinged with a faint fire. So had his mother, half-timid child, half peasant, and entirely woman, often watched with him beneath her heart. Yet as Bernardy saw the rose ligh

town, and which had wiped his mind clear of resentment, and freed it for new impressions: he remembered the shock when he had first recognized the walls, his growing excitement as thing after thing was familiar to him, the blinding flash of the moment when he realized he had found his dream-city. On the crest of receptiveness he had entered the church, and the phrase of the old peasant woman had caught at his imagination. Looking back, he saw how it was the extraordinary serenity of the townsfolk that seemed their dominant characteristic-they were wrapped in it as in an atmosphere, they were clear-eyed, clear-skinned, clear-souled. From the moment when he recognized the nail-studded door till he put down the last of his mother's letters, his comprehensions had flowed outward in widening circles. In his new knowledge of his father and mother he saw himself more clearly than ever before. He remembered his mother, a silent, quiet-eyed woman, nearly always bent over her needlework-and he saw her as the eager, ig

test dre

him down the path, her skirts swinging from her broad hips. H

for the whiteness of her skin, with a something rockhewn about her face, her only beauty was that of health and a certain assurance which spoke of perfect poise. She was what Bernardy, in that moment's clarity of vision, knew her for-a woman born to be mother of men. He took a step towar

ed last night when my gr

startled out of himself

er has always made me

ged in the waxing possessiveness of the man, "sha

e, that is so, is

ie to you. But it seems to me it matters very little whether I am or not. It is not that

What matters is that I can give to you an

s created in his verse, but it was for this his mother had borne him, it was this that the old woman in the church had meant, it was for this that the woman at his side had wa

E

E

eful choice, comment waxed bitter. The privilege of proposal belongs in Cornwall to that sex commonly called "the weaker"-a girl goes through the various stages of courtship conducted out of doors, and if she decides to marry the young man, asks him to "s

rayer meeting. "She'm an ontidy kind o' maid who don't knaw one end of needle from t'other. When her stockin' heels g

are piece o' red and white, and menfolk are feeble vessels. If a maid's a fine armful th

-like line of nose and the prominent chin curved a little upwards from her throat. A few years, and she would be lean and haggard, but now she was a fine, buoyant creature, swift and tumultuous, with a mouth like a flower. F

hanics and for chemistry, and was supposed to be experimenting with a new process that would cheapen the cost of extracting the silver. Willie Strick, the younger, handsomer, more happy-go-lucky of the two men, went to "bal" in the tin mines, and was disinclined to save, but then his aged grandmother, with whom he li

ing skirt, and a heavy coil of hair jerking a little lower on the nape of her neck with each vigorous stride, Vashti faced the fact that matters could continue as they were no longer. At bottom Vashti was as hard as granite, she meant to have what she wanted; her only trouble was she had not quite settled what

cousins, with a superficial trick of likeness, and an almost exact similarity of voice. A prescience of impending fate weighed on Vashti; the gaunt shaft of the disused Wheal Zenna mine, that stood up between her and the approaching man, seemed like a menacing finger. The man reached it first and stood leaning up against it, one foot on the rubble

he hour and the man had come together, and she knew it as she met Glasson's look. Putting out his hands, ingrained with earth in the finest se

end," he said. "One way or

she tried to pout out her full underlip with a p

n'! You'm my woman, do'ee hear? Mine, and neither Wil

his lips crush on her own till she could have cried out with pain if she had been able to draw breath.

id Glasson quietly, "and take'n home,

*

le, submission. It was not until several months after her marriage that she began to feel again the more ordinary and yet more complex sensations of everyday life. If she had to the full a primitive woman's joy in being possessed, she had also the instinctive need for possessing her man utterly, and James

le bits of finery, he no longer noticed them, realized that she was merely a necessity to him as his woman-something to be there when she was wanted, she began to harden. He still had a fascination for her wh

f it visible from Perran-an-zenna, and Vashti began to chafe under the isolation,

the inexpressible charm of it, the soft, indolent airs, scented with flowers, or pungent with salt; above all, that reticence that makes for lonely thoughts, these things had, generation by generation, moulded her forbears, and their influence was in her blood. Even the indifference with which she saw arose from her oneness with her own country, and in

the miles of interfolding hills, and inset among the grey-green of the moor the patches of young bracken showed vivid as slabs of emerald. Lightly as balls of thistledown the larks hopped swiftly over the heather on their thin legs, the self-heal and bird's-foot trefoil made a carpet of purple and yellow; from the heavy-scented gorse came the staccato notes of the crickets, while in a distant copse a cuckoo called faintly on her changed, June note. As Vashti rounded the corner of the rutted track and the cottage came into view, she paused. The deeply sloping slate roof was iridescent as a pigeon's breast, and the whitewashed walls were burnished with gold by the late sunlight, while against the faded peacock blue of the fence the evening primroses seemed luminous. Even to Vashti

d as a workshop, and tried the door. It was locke

hastily put down and a cupboard door being shut. Then Glasson

he said briefly, "ca

chase was beginning to fade, but she

" she flashed: "I'd a fine thing to show 'ee here, if

olishness over to market. Get the supper or I shan't

n," she retorted; "you

mouth. She stood sullenly; then, when he dropped his hand, went into the house. She heard him turn the key in the lock as she went. That night she

dlelight, pricked at her-not with any feeling for him except resentment, but at first it rather spoiled her lover for her. They had to meet by stealth, but that was easy enough, as James was now on an afternoon core, and Willie on a morning one. To do the latter justice, he had tried, at the beginning, a feeble resistance to the allure that Vashti had for him, not from any scruple of conscience, but because his pleasure-loving nature shrank from anything that might lead to unpleasantness. And, careless as he seemed of his wife, James Glasson would be an ugl

ared, and as he spoke he slid an arm round her waist. To his surprise, she yielded and swayed towards him so tha

London church town to-morrow to see one of the ma

nt round her-the next moment came a crash that seemed to split t

oudly and thinly, like a woman. Vashti recoiled, flung

she cried. "Oh, get

ed on, and a thick smoke, reeking of chemicals, hung above the outhouse. As Vashti, followed by t

hole of one side of it was covered by an enormous blister, a nightmare thing, which, as the woman gaze

ed Vashti with dry lips, "as quick a

ainst a patch of grass, while Willie ran, hor

fely devotion. She sat by the gleam of a flickering nightlight, her eyes on the

e you good news. Your husband will live, and will keep the sight of one eye. But-though of course wonders ca

heavily-how easy it would be to lay a hand over that slit in the linen-a few minutes, and this nightmare w

Vashti's self-control broke down. She wept stormily, her head along her arms. Release had flaunted so near to her, and was withdrawn, and her horror of the Thing on the bed was mingled with a pity for it that ate into her mind. S

had made it very deep, so that it would hang to just below the jawbone, and she had laboriously buttonhole-sti

an object of fearful curiosity in Perran-an-zenna; even the children became so used to it that they left off calling out as h

the doctor? Sometimes a meaning word seemed to show that he knew everything, sometimes she argued that he could only guess. The black mask filled the whole of her life, the thought of it was never out of her mind, not even when she was working on her old farm, for she had to be breadwinner now. She found herself dwelling on what lay behind the mask, wondering whether it could be as bad as that

long the rod. One day, when he was working in the garden, he turned to face the wind. She saw him sideways against the sky, and the black

abjectness as she was, she felt near the end of her endurance. The perpetual scheming to meet Willie unknown to her husband-a difficulty now the latter was nearl

vening drew on she busied herself about her little preparations in the kitchen with a colour burning in her cheeks and a softened light in her eyes. That evening Vashti Glasson was touched with a grace of womanliness she had never worn for her husband. Every harmless and tender instinct of the lover was at work in her, making her choose her nicest tablecloth, arrange a cluster of chrysanthemums in an ornate glass vase, put a long-discarded ribbon of gaud

e a high priestess of Love, and was not to be cheated of any of the ritual. She was decked out as for a bridal; no more rough-and-ready wooing and winning for her. But

'ee?" he asked,

wn made for you,"

mmered. "'Tes ill luck o

in and set down-yes, take that chair," and she pus

as no level head to plan any details or set a scene-Vashti won by stealth, anywhere and anyhow, was all he had thought of

the heart to her throat, while Willie sprang up fearfully. It was only the poker, that, caught by the full skirt of the black silk frock, had been sent clattering to the ground, but it made them stare at each other in a stricken panic for a speechless minute. The white light of the moon shone clearly

sh, Willie!" she said, with an attempt at a laugh. "Do bel

"he shan't take 'ee from me no

of moonlit brightness, barred by the darkness of an arm, grow wider and wider. She knew, before the for

t crash of the overturned table added to her confusion-then quite suddenly the sounds of struggling ceased and one man rose to his feet. In the dimness of the room, seein

ie," he whispered.

loor. She ripped open his shirt and felt for his heart as well as her trembling fingers would allow. She lifted his arm and

ered. They both spoke low, as though t

d and fell and hit his head-they'll make me swi

e woman. She pressed her hands to

ht?" whispered

ie, you'm rare and like

d Willie, thinking the s

eplied Vashti

n whispers-she unfolding her plan-he recoiling

nt talk of emigrating, his oft-heard boasts of slipping away in the night and not coming back till he had made a fortune, would all help to cover up his disappearance. And who was to connect it with Vashti and her silent, eccentric, black-masked husband-who would

e shuddering; "I couldn't put 'en a

se to her feet, and setting the candle o

ugh James and I had just had our bit o' supper. Mop up the water and sw

ave me alone wi' he?"

be up overstairs making the mask.

she had sewed once before, when her husband had lain motionless on the bed. Every now and then came smal

n', Willie?"

called back. "I've

sk was finished, and she went to the

t down. Put it in your pocket and I'll ch

ess, and she went back to her room a

would have known the way blindfold, they found the shaft without difficulty. They scrambled up the sloping rubble of stones and tipped the body over the jagged hole in the side of th

ashes together into thick points, and the drops tickled her neck so that she put up her hand to it. Both she and the man were drawing the deep, hoarse breaths o

rting up, "us may meet some o

t-I've got t'm

mmerings of what her life would be henceforth appeared to the woman. The fear of neighbours, the efforts to appear neutral, the memory of that slowly opening door, and the still thing by the

and let the door swing to behind them. She

s a kiss, and me with red ha

ke away with a cry. She heard him laugh as

; "did you think 'twas a black br

d him, "take off t'

e afeared?

', and I do hate that mask mo

n off-to plea

y the hem and ripped it away-a

ol to think to fool me! You was quick enough to say I was dead; I'm not so easy killed, Vassie. No so easy killed as your lover was-just the carven'-knife between his shoulders when h

ng her fingers against her eyes; "put

e knawed all these months; I've seen 'ee meet 'en; I told 'ee I was going to stop the night over to Truro so as to catch 'ee together; I listened outside the house; I let 'ee think I was dead, and hear

, "I'll tell the police on 'ee.

over moor and tip 'en down shaft. And what have 'ee to complain on, I should like to knaw? When I wear t'mask you can pretend I'm Willie-handsome Willie. Willie

fear, to strain away from the wick. The steel-cold light of dawn grew in the sky and filtered into the room, showing all the sordid litter of it;

ou that 'tes Willie speakin'! Don't let us think on James Glasson dead

his purpose in his eye, and remembered hi

e again she was running, heavily now, towards Wheal Zenna mineshaft. He was gaining on her, and her breath was nearly spent. Both were going slowly, hardly above a stumbling walk, as the shaft came in sight; the drawing of their breath sounded harsh as the rasping of a file through the still air. As she neared the shaft she turned her head and saw hi

by the two straining, frantic creatures, who heard nothing but the roaring in their own ears. They caught Glasson as he ran across the patch of grass to the shaft, and he doubled

event, swamped in the greater stir of Glasson's attempt to murder his wife. His madness had taken the one form that made Vashti safe-he had gone mad on secretiveness. How much he remembered not even she knew, but not a word could anyone

another husband. She went much to chapel, and there was no one more religious than she, and no one harder on the sins and van

DEN E

DEN E

place caught from some fellow-traveller, aided by the fact that the time-table had happened to open at the words "Sant' Ambrogio"-these were the trifles by which the power stronger than herself guided Sophia, with such cunning manipulation, such a fine lack of insistence even on the

ountry, as though a landscape consisted of mere earth and vegetation, is to make an incomplete statement; the quality of the light, the harmony or discordance where man's work meets Nature; and, above all, the intangible atmosphere, rarer and more vital than the actual enveloping air, that is the soul of a country-all these are of more potency than the position of a clump of tr

oung leaf. The maize was a couple of feet in height, and where the sun shone through the blades of it they looked like thin green flames. The heat was intense, and the air seemed stifled with the subtle smell of the dust that lay thickly over the road and powdered the grassy edges. The whole plain of Tuscany, apparently empty of human life, and consequently fill

ne with this sense of light, as body is one with soul, was the sense of colour-tender greens, at once pure and delicate; blues that paled to the merest breath or merged in a soft purple. The wideness of the view gave full value to the exquisitely fine curves which composed it-the curves of outli

urve in the road and she received the shock of Sant' Ambrogio against the distant arch of the sky, sudden tears burned in her eyelids. Leaning b

ut the ripples of the plain all converge towards it, leading the eye naturally up to this little crown of Tuscany. When they considered a tower a reminder of God, the ancients were not without a deeper spiritual foundation than they knew of; there is nothing of more direct psychological significance th

ore her mental vision the loggia at the top of the old palace in Florence where she and Richard had said good-bye. She, who was to see the cords of passion grow slack, had there seen them stretched at their tensest, and the memory of it clutched at her heart with that pity for him which had kept her calm for his comfort. Now, mingled with it, was her own pain, which, at the

can wring from the tongue, a soliloquy terrible in its unse

uth knew better than to favour the broad streets planned by their descendants, and the narrow ways threaded so cunningly between the tall cliffs of houses were cool as shadowed streams. The greyness of the paved street fell like a suggestion of peace

looking back afterwards, that she had also been aware that the inn was for her but the ante-chamber to some other place or state, as yet unrevealed. At the time she was only conscious t

y for peace made her fail, and rising she wandered round the church till she came to the little chapel on whose walls the life of the town's saint, Beata, has been painted by some "Ignoto" who must have had a touch of genius. Sophia stood and gazed at the various scenes. Santa Beata, a child with corn-coloured hair lying along her back, running away from her resentful playmates, a set of curly-headed, sly, pinching, clear-eyed ragamuffins, such as those who quarrel and play in the streets of Sant' Ambrogio to this day. Santa Beata, wrapped in a cloud, conversing with the Beloved, while the children search the field vainly for her-the Beloved Himself being na?vely expressed by what looked like a small bonf

shed long ago with the business of life surging in her heart. The memory of the past weeks seemed shameful and she herself not fit to hold intercourse with other girls-girls to whom things had not happened. In that moment Sophia knew she had lost her girlhood none the less surely for having saved her virginity, which three things had helped to guard-a clarity of pre-vision which bade her not give Richard even what he most desired, because it showed her that it must inevitably work him misery; the knowledge that he did not love her finely enough for such a gift to be fitting; and thirdly, the strongest thing of all-that no one who is accustomed, however imperfectly, to walk in the spiritual world, can lightly forgo the privilege. "I should have been afraid of losing touch," Sophia said long a

out of life for her, and she hurried away from the children on the steps. Turning down a narrow lane she came to a door in the wall, and pushing it open she looked into what seemed a lake of green light, flecked with swaying rounds of sun and chequered with deeper green shadows-a garden run luxuriantly wild. Sophia stepped inside, and on her right, built half against and half on the wall, she saw a little ochre-washed house with faded blue shutters. Wandering on, she came to some lilacs in hard, red bud that hung over a well, and passing under the arch they made she found the further end of the garden. There a flight of uneven old steps led to the top of the wall, and she went up them. At the head of

throwing off her hat, she laid her arms along

e," she moaned. "I'm goi

ng a deadly nausea took hold of her, she felt physically sick and put her hand up to her throat to check its contraction. A letter from him always affected her in that way, so that she sat, sick and faint, unable to open it, and now these oft-rea