Haggards of the Rock

HE whole matter remains something of a puzzle still, despite the lapse of time and the perspective into which it has retreated. But at Pleating it was more so. Pleating is always a delightful place, particularly when Lady Herapath takes the trouble, as she sometimes does, to select her company with care. For my part I have got beyond the age when every new face must of necessity be interesting. It is a pleasure to see pretty faces and fine clothes, no doubt, but so it is also to have handsome pictures hanging on the walls, and the appointments of the table faultless. Lady Herapath had all these at Pleating, and she sometimes added to them a company of the elect, with whom conversation was practicable, and who were not there merely to be seen and admired.

I had at first the thought that Miss Livingston was one of these latter, for it was obvious that she was admired, and not the less because she was wealthy. I had heard of her, of course, in one or two quarters before I met her, but principally from George Lincoln, who was after all given to enthusiasm, particularly where women were concerned. In any case I reflected, when I arrived, that Pleating was a pleasant house in which to spend a fortnight after the dismal procession of the winter months, and in preparation, so to speak, for the London season. The season does not, in point of fact, trouble me very deeply, but I like to think I am involved in it as a factor of some importance, and I emerge the other side of it with a more or less genuine feeling of enjoyment and relief. But spring at Pleating has attractions. The park is small, but beautifully laid out; the air streams over the hills on the west with a stimulating suggestion of romance which agitates even middle-aged nerves, and in the meadows the primroses and the king-cups are heralding the advance of summer.

It was not until I saw them together that I realised George Lincoln's case, and at the same time appreciated the truth of his eulogies. Miss Livingston was singularly handsome, of a light, fine figure, and with a certain quickness of eye which was taking. I encountered them as I walked from the station, having scorned to drive on that balmy day, and Lincoln made the introduction with an obvious eagerness, and as obvious a shyness. His were but common English qualities—a good-looking face, a good carriage, and other virile attributes that attend on such things, at least in this country. But he was certainly not of the elect, and for the moment I was disposed to groan at the fear that Lady Herapath had peopled her house after this kind. I little knew that George was destined to prove more interesting, and also more embarrassing to me, than any of the more specialised types after which I sighed.

There was just frank curiosity in Miss Livingston's eyes when George introduced me as one of his oldest friends.

“Yes,” said I, taking off my hat and letting the soft air fan my thinning hair, “so old as to be nearly, but not quite, Sir George's father.”

“I'm glad you escaped that,” said she dryly, and something in her voice rather than in her little repartee took my attention.

As we strolled towards the house I discovered what it was that interested me. She had a bright sub-acid wit, which was not in the least annoying, yet countered one, so to speak, even if one were not designing a stroke. She was on her guard, it seemed, all the time, and her sallies, such as they were, covered a certain large restlessness of nature. She may have been beautiful, and she may have been an heiress, as I reflected, but she was also something more—she had a character and notions of her own.

Lady Herapath had not collected a menagerie of interesting people this time. Indeed, I fear that on the whole we were an unexciting lot; but as I was privileged to sit next to Miss Livingston at dinner, I did not resent that. I noticed that she had a hearty appetite, and that her laugh was ingenuous. She betrayed health in everything about her. Her conversation was ingenuous also, as I discovered.

“Mr. Weston,” said she, with a sort of brisk earnestness, “you know Sir George Lincoln well. What is he going to do?”

Now, as George Lincoln had not the faintest idea himself what he was going to do, how could I be expected to prophesy for him?

“I think he is going to eat, and dance, and hunt” I began, perhaps somewhat unkindly.

“I see,” she interrupted, nodding with the air of one who would have said, “I knew it.”

“And—possibly go into Parliament,” I made amends to add.

“Like all his kind,” said Miss Livingston, looking at me. She was certainly of an amazing beauty, also of an amazing directness.

“Like some of his kind,” I corrected. “It is one of the proudest boasts of our country that young men in Sir George's position do not shrink, as a rule, from the burdens imposed by their privileges. Indeed, the acceptance of that responsibility is among their privileges.”

“That is put quite prettily,” said she, smiling, “and I quite understand. Indeed, I understood before. Sir George has told me twice that he was in the 'Varsity Fifteen. Also, he has won two golf cups at least.”

There was here a hint—perhaps more than a hint—of that acidity which I had already detected, but I did not at the moment see my way to answer it.

“Lincoln golfs, I believe,” I murmured.

“And you?” she asked in her quick way.

“God forbid!” said I, for of golf and bridge I am profoundly ignorant.

She broke into light and pleasant laughter, and I am sure we should have got on even better together if at that moment the ladies had not left the table.

In the billiard-room later Lincoln sought me with some awkwardness. He had always respected my opinion—as, of course, he should.

“What do you think of her?” he asked.

“If you mean Miss Livingston,” I answered, “I think she is astonishingly pretty.”

“Pretty!” he echoed impatiently—“I think she's lovely.”

“And does she know that?” I asked.

“Know that she's lovely?” he inquired.

“Know that you think it?” I said.

“Yes, of course,” he answered quite shortly.

“And what does she think of you?” I inquired.

George turned his head away. “Oh, I don't know,” he replied in a different voice. “Nothing, I suppose.”

It was not at all that any veil of reserve had fallen, for George Lincoln was as frank as any man of his class; he blundered out his sentiments. It was merely that he also now blundered out his ignorance and his confusion of mind. He really did not know, but he suspected that she thought nothing of him. I don't quite know at this period of time if he were right. I have my doubts. As you shall see, it was all a tangle, and I may be excused for bewilderment, but upon my soul I cannot see how I could have behaved otherwise.

Miss Livingston lost no time in taking me in hand. She had as little self-consciousness as is credible in any healthy young woman, and I am sure she never counted the cost—that is, the possible misunderstanding. I am not so old, if my temples do show a little grey, nor do I think that she looked upon me as ineligible. I preferred to think then (and I think still) that she found me more to her intellectual taste than the bulk of Lady Herapath's guests. It was fine spring weather; sunlight lay wide and bright and cool upon the hills, and the meadows bourgeoned. We walked in the meadows and by the barren coppices. It was the sweet of the year, though not June, but even the breath of June was in those fragrant nights, with the sound of the mill below the park and the wind in last year's heather.

Miss Livingston's courage, if I have indicated her truly, was at one with her conscientiousness. So slight and lovely a girl to carry so much spirit! It was wonderful. But I think I liked best her way of laughing. She had not the least sense of humour, as I understood it, but she had a most beautiful and sharp sense of the ludicrous. It was pantomimic humour that appealed to her. She was, that is, still a child, but Heaven forbid I should have told her so! I discovered this very soon.

We had several delightful days, and walked afield very often. She had that healthy love of pleasant exercise natural to the English girl, and becoming to her. I sympathised with that taste; which I knew, however, was not shared by George Lincoln. If he walked he must have an object; otherwise he preferred to ride. There was, of course, as you perceive, an object on this occasion, and George walked—sometimes in my company. He wanted some one in whom to confide, and I was an old friend. Miss Livingston had, in his phrase, struck him all of a heap, a picturesque condition to which, I reminded him, he was not a stranger. But George would not suffer reminiscences—he considered them unfriendly; and vehemently reiterated his statement, defining his position with large recklessness. If he could not have her he would have none. He did not give a tinker's curse for her fortune, but he worshipped her face. Yet he was afraid of her—she seemed to look down upon him, and to be tickled by him. What was he to do?

Frankly, I did not see that there was anything to be done but put up with the situation, but I did not say so. On the contrary, I weakly encouraged him, talking vaguely of virginal modesty and natural reticence. George was inordinately grateful, which was somewhat embarrassing.

“I will take your advice,” said he warmly: “I believe you're right. You're a good old chap, and you have seen a good deal of her. You're pretty chummy with her, I know. She trusts you, I can see. You've got a shrewd eye for any one's character, Weston. You've influence with her. By Jove, you're right.”

It was true that I had seen a good deal of her, as I have hinted, and I think it is true that I have a shrewd eye for character. But that I had any influence with Miss Livingston was more than doubtful to me. Still, we had got on terms of something like unconventional frankness, It was that very afternoon that I had an illustration of how far our intimacy had progressed. Miss Livingston basked in the April sun upon a perch of dried heather, and surveyed the valley.

“Do you know,” said she abruptly, “that I think people are the better for living on hills.”

“Why, yes,” I agreed: “the air is better, and naturally the appetite”

“You know quite well I don't mean that,” she said swiftly. “'You are always cloaking your real opinions under cynical levity, Mr. Weston. Sometimes I think it is not quite wise or right.”

“My dear lady,” said I, “I am sure it is neither; but you must make allowances for the force of habit. To have lived forty years odd in the world and to have failed is to justify the accents of Timon.”

“Not Timon,” said she in her quick way—“never Timon; and besides, to have failed! What is failure? Is it success to ride, hunt, drive, sleep, and play billiards?”

“It is failure to do nothing,” I murmured hopefully.

She turned her vivid eyes on me. “You speak of forty years as if it were age. You are going to do something. Your talent is not likely to be thrown away.”

You will admit that this was very pleasant hearing, and I will confess that I should like to have prolonged it, despite the fact that I might presently have had to confess that I had not only never had a brief, but never wanted one. It was clear that Miss Livingston had formed in her precipitate way an opinion of me as flattering as her opinion of George Lincoln was depreciatory. I had a prick of conscience at the thought of poor George, and introduced him somewhat clumsily, as I was aware. I spoke of the opportunities for usefulness such a life as a country squire's must have. Miss Livingston's nose wrinkled in evident disdain, and I paused.

“Go on,” she said—“pray goon. It is interesting to hear you playing devil's advocate.”

Good Heavens, was poor George then the But there was a certain sort of annoyance in her voice that alarmed me. What the mischief, after all, had I to do with George Lincoln's love affairs? I refused to imperil a very pleasant situation, and I did not go on. Miss Livingston also was silent, contemplating the spire below us.

“There is one thing about you that I have liked,” said she—“that is, your complete restfulness and sympathy.”

I murmured my obligations.

“No, I wish to speak clearly as from one human being to another,” she went on in her peremptory way. “Do you think that possible?”

I hastily agreed, declaring that save for the paltry compliments of the ballroom it was the only way in which I could understand talk.

“That is exactly what I mean,” said she. “This ballroom talk is carried through life as if life were a ballroom.”

“It is a field of battle,” said I emphatically.

“I knew you agreed with me,” she said triumphantly. “You see, Mr. Weston, I am under a disadvantage: I am an heiress.”

“A great pity,” I said, with a shake of my head.

“It is not so much that I object to having the money,” continued Miss Livingston hastily; “but it places me under disadvantages—my being known to have it.”

“Ah!” I said, nodding, “I see. It would be pleasanter to play the beggar maid to Cophetua.”

Miss Livingston looked at me. “Do you know, I think that's rather a ballroom remark,” she said with mild displeasure.

I heartily agreed that it was, but observed that the bad habit sometimes cropped up unconsciously, like tares in a field of grain.

“I am told, too,” said Miss Livingston, with a little hesitation—“I am told that I am considered rather—something of a—good-looking.”

“Very beautiful,” I interjected fervidly.

Miss Livingston did not look at me, but her colour rose. “I wished to speak myself, please,” she said, with embarrassed coldness.

“I beg your pardon,” said I, quite calmly, “but I was merely mentioning bare facts without comment.”

Miss Livingston was still pink, but she resumed without noticing my apology. “That belief of people's, again, is a disadvantage to one.”

“Most distinctly,” said I sympathetically. “It is a serious matter to be very beautiful.”

The phrase was passed this time without protest, and Miss Livingston ran on a little hurriedly. “You see it has always been impossible for one to be valued or liked for what one is oneself. People have always appreciated one for one's money or one's—one's appearance, so to speak.”

“That is quite true, and it is quite wrong,” said I sympathetically. “One should be appreciated for oneself, and not for one's attributes.”

“Yes, shouldn't one?” said Miss Livingston in relief; “and that,” she continued, meeting my gaze frankly, “that is what I liked about my companionship with yourself, Mr. Weston. You have been interested in what I was myself.”

“Entirely,” I said heartily. “You have interested me enormously.”

“Which, of course” began Miss Livingston quicker than ever, and then stopped.

I think she had shied at the warmth of my tone, and had begun the sentence without seeing where she wanted to go. But I helped her: “is the proper attitude of human beings to one another,” I finished.

“Yes.” She smiled pleasantly at me, and I know my face was cool, friendly and critical. You see, the hair is greying on my temples.

There certainly seemed no chance that she would be interested in what George Lincoln was himself, and my tentative remarks from time to time met with disapproving silence, if not caustic comment.

“Really,” said she, entering the breakfast room one morning: “Sir George Lincoln still here! How does he spare so much time from cricket?”

I explained that the cricket season had not yet begun.

“Ah, that accounts for it,” said she lightly; which was certainly hard on Lincoln, who was not at all a good cricketer.

George himself, I noticed, wore a look of hopeful resignation, and behaved very meekly. He had no more sense of humour than Miss Livingston, which was about the only point of resemblance between them, unless you take account of the good looks they had in common. But what staggered me, as well as amused me, was the simplicity with which he interpreted her. Obvious sarcasms were not to be overlooked by a stable-boy. Miss Livingston's voice, her flashing eye and the scorn in her general aspect, must have made her grosser sallies patent. Yet her lighter shades escaped him, and the poor fellow was actually under the delusion that she was interested in his athletic career!

“Thanks, old chap,” said he, with his sad hopefulness, “I believe you've helped me a bit. She's kinder to me than she was. She's always asking about my horses and my golf cups and that. Oh yes, she's much kinder.”

I really had not the heart to undeceive him, and he probably would not have believed me. Would it have been better if I had made the effort? Upon my heart I don't know, even at this distance. At any rate, his illusion led swiftly to the imbroglio.

But it was not that which originated the conditions resulting in the tangle. It was his unexpected jealousy. Miss Livingston had found me, as I have said, and as she frankly admitted, congenial to her. We had tastes in common, and we both liked walking. Then she was remarkably handsome, and she was—well, voluble is not the word, but pleasantly talkative. I liked to listen to her developing new aspects and new theories. She was the most ingenious girl, and her mind was as agile and vivacious as her soul was shy and ardent. She has always recalled to me that fine phrase—

There it was. She was coy and shy and untamed and free and friendly in one. Her spirits were haggards, and I delighted in the play they made, in their faring forth and their return, and in the splutter and fire of their anger when aroused. We certainly did get on well, as Lady Herapath reminded me with her diplomatic smile.

We had gone to the library to look up a disputed point in Browning; and of course there is the traditional air of romance about a library. The library at Pleating House is somewhat disappointing from the point of view of romance. It is well lighted, and there are no bays and refuges in it. It stands four square, so to speak, to publicity. But Miss Livingston and I, as a matter of fact, were its only tenants that evening. She had started first in her impulsive way, and then I had had the idea that it was hardly fair that the trouble should fall on her. It was clearly a man's business to verify quotations. So I followed.

I found her on the steps, pulling at a volume, and I assisted her down with it. Then we explored it together. The evening was very pleasant, and I don't think either of us wanted to return to either the billiard-room or the drawing-room. We found the passage, and discussed it. It was not so much a question of accuracy in quotation as one of interpretation, as it is ever with Browning. But she settled down to my version, which was commonsense. Hers was chimeric, transcendental, betraying her sweet idealism. You will remember she was beautiful. But in turning the pages a word leapt out at me. It was “Numpholeptos.”

It took me suddenly in the throat, and my nostrils quivered, as nostrils will quiver and spring under an emotion. Just about my ears the hair is fading to a decorous grey, but I was still caught by that thought:

Well, there was no moon shining; but the flare of the gas was bright enough, and made search in every corner.

“What have you got?” asked Miss Livingston,

I shut the book sharply. “I have looked down the aisle of years, and seen my head quite white,” I said.

She regarded me thoughtfully. “Is it a grievance?” she asked in a gentle voice.

“Oh no,” said I lightly; “but it is a fact. You see the snow lies only on high summits, and there is consolation for the old. I shall begin to do something then.”

“No, now.” She laid her hand on my arm. I would have looked at the hand, which was ringless, if I could have got away from the eyes.

“Now, at your behest, fair lady,” I said, bending my lips to the white flesh.

She smiled, and I think she coloured. She was adorably pretty, at any rate. Pretty! Well, it was my word to George Lincoln; but I began to have an inkling of his impatience. I suppose this it was to be nympholept. I had no right at my sober age. I kissed her hand.

What? It was only her fingers, after all; but as luck and the gas had it, we were in full illumination to Lincoln as he stood in the doorway. George, being a gentleman, turned noiselessly and went, but not before we had both seen him. My hamadryad fled in her impulsive, graceful way, and I was left with Browning. George Lincoln might be confounded, but I would read on.

.

Sweet, but neither sad, no—nor cold. Bottom, thou art translated!

Of course, George Lincoln broached the subject with intemperance and despatch. If he had to congratulate me—he broke out; but he had naturally regarded me in the category of non-competitors.

“You may bestow upon me any congratulations you will, George,” said I. “It is not often that I am privileged to enjoy so much of the society of so charming a girl as”

“It's damnable, Weston, that's what it is, after what you've said and I've told you,” he burst in.

I faced him. “Look here, George Lincoln,” I said quietly: “let us clear the decks for the premisses. In the first place, I recognise fully at my age that I am hors concours; but I will not be told so. Next, you can't expect to have a free field for ever. There must be some sort of time-limit. And thirdly, I'm hanged if you're good enough for her.”

“I know I'm not that,” he said sorrowfully—so sadly, indeed, that I repented.

“Well, what is to be done?” said I. “I have done what I could, but it seems no good.”

“No, there isn't much good to me in such doings as last night,” he said grimly.

I made no answer to that. “If you can suggest anything” I began severely.

“I thought you might do that,” he said lamely, and with every sign of submission.

I was silent. He had not the faintest chance, but I was bound to do the best I could for him. After all, it would be wiser with a girl of character like Miss Livingston to come to the point boldly. If she was going to reject George, as was only too certain, she would respect him for his manly advance. Let him die honourably, if he were going to die at all.

“Very well,” said I at last. “My advice is to try your luck.”

“You think” he began, in his amazement.

“I do. Put it to the touch. Stand not upon the order of your going, George. Screw your courage to the sticking point. You see that all aphorisms traditionally point that way. Miss Livingston is a young lady who knows her own mind, but I will be hanged if any one else does. She probably holds you in esteem, and me in contempt.”

George Lincoln, as I have said, is not very quick of wit, and his mind lingered on the former half of my concluding sentence,

“I know she respects me for what I have—well, for cups and pots and things like that,” he said, with hopeful shamefacedness.

I must confess I grew impatient. “Oh, she likes you for what you are—never fear,” I said irritably, and rose.

George looked at me in wonder, and rose sympathetically. “Poor old chap!” he said at last. “I didn't know it was that way. I'm very sorry, but of course... So that was what it was last night? Oh, well, I don't mind your having tried your luck first, but”

The fool thought I had been rejected. I left him.

I have no doubt I ought to have warned him about his athletic feats, but I had had a good deal to put up with, and, moreover, how was I to know he would make such an egregious ass of himself? But it seemed that he made out a plan of campaign for himself, and put it into operation. George was not a coward at heart, but he shrank from this encounter, and spent the better part of the day bracing himself for the ordeal.

As chance had it, I witnessed, if I did not hear, the opening of the farce. Was it farce or tragedy? I really cannot say.

Down the park where the stream winds in a rowdy current below the saw-mill is a low-lying stretch of land, planted with an avenue of young birches, elders, and bird-cherries, and populous with kingcups in May. It is a pretty walk, and you can watch the trout race in the eddies if you will, or (in summer) can cross to the arbour in the islet under the shadow of willows. It was from this arbour, bare now and blighted, that I watched the meeting. I had Browning with me, not to read so much as to muse over, and I was thinking of those lines—

Miss Livingston did imagine that she could stand up to the assaults of fact. I suppose all women do, and can't. They shrink aside. She was not yet put to the world, but was a shy wilding. Oh yes, her spirits were haggards always.... I looked up from my reverie and saw them. George, poor fool, had already been there for some minutes, and, if you please, had brought his golf-ball and some of those things they call stymies or brassies or cleeks. He was encouraging his spirits to the jump. He practised with the eye and hand of ardour. I had marked him, and turned to my Browning.

But Miss Livingston's appearance straightened me. Browning fell. There was nothing discreditable or unseemly in gaping through the naked birches. George's ball soared to the skies, and dropped somewhere in the distant park. I saw him watch the flight critically, complacently, and then he turned and was aware of her. From my arbour I could see her quizzical smile. He was, if he had only known it, caught red-handed, poor devil. I surrendered him to his folly and picked up the book. He had the air, in the distance, of explaining to her how to drive or put or whatever it is, and I could almost guess the course of his wooing. I have said all along that the girl had wit and sense; but she was lacking in humour, save, of course, the pantomimic sense. That came in presently. I was not going to spy on George, and I turned over my pages.

What in the name of all that was sacred did it mean? In any case, what did it matter? I shut the volume with a slam. Poor George had got his gruel by this time, no doubt.

When I lifted my eyes Miss Livingston was walking quickly down the little bare avenue, and George stood undecided. Then he darted after her. What in the name of heaven had happened?

Miss Livingston crossed the little bridge where the stream narrows below the islet and the water roars in the tiny cañon, and George Lincoln flew after her. On reaching the vestibule of the bridge he called to her, and she halted on the other side, and looked back—I think haughtily. George Lincoln stood on the bridge, drawn to his full height, and I was pretty sure what he was saying. Suddenly his dignified attitude changed. He slipped, staggered, and then, as it seemed to me, deliberately and awkwardly sat into the stream. It was so well done as to be almost like a rehearsed scene of comedy.

Miss Livingston put her head back and laughed so that the peals reached me. It was melodious laughter. She was laughing still when George got to land, and I saw him lift his hat and pass away. There was the end of him.

He was still wet and muddy when I encountered him, but he gave me no information to account for his condition. He merely stated that he had had an accident. His face was set in a frown. I was sorry for George. This was what made me say what I said when Miss Livingston told me what had happened. I went to find her in the wood across the stream, and mentioned I had met Lincoln and what was his plight. A smile beleaguered her trembling mouth.

“Yes,” said she demurely. “He fell into the stream.”

“Oh!” said I. “Fell only? or was he pushed?”

She looked at me with inquiring eyes. “What do you mean, Mr. Weston? or is it a joke?”

“It is an allegory,” I answered mildly.

“I'm not sure I like allegories,” said she.

“I'm perfectly sure I don't,” I said; “but at times they are necessary.”

“You have turned preacher suddenly,” said Miss Livingston.:

“My dear lady, I was to begin at something at once, was I not? I've been idle too long.”

“And so you begin on me,” she said, with some coolness of tone.

“Why, was it you?” I asked, smiling.

She reddened ever so slightly. “I think you are talking great nonsense,” she said sharply; and then she added with some hesitancy, “Did Sir George say anything to you?”

“No,” said I. “He seemed put out.”

Miss Livingston poked holes with her sunshade. “You are such intimates, you see,” she said, “that I thought”

“So did I,” I said, as she paused. “Which was why I asked if he had been pushed in.”

She gave me a steady glance, and looked away. “I daresay he will tell you,” she said.

“I can guess,” I replied.

“Then if you guess,” she said coldly, “why all this foolish talk?”

“A blow is a blow,” said I, “whether physical or mental;” for I felt kindly towards poor George.

“I couldn't help laughing, but I was very sorry for him,” she said carelessly.

“Sorry that he” I began.

“Sorry that he fell in,” she said grimly, and eyed me severely.

“I think if I were a woman I should be sorry for other things also,” I dared to say.

She made no answer, but sat down on the wooden seat. I followed her example.

“You mean that you would be sorry for some one who was in love with you?” she inquired slowly.

“Not exactly. Sorry for some one whom you had had to reject.”

She said “Oh!” quite quickly, and sat thinking.

“You see,” said I, “it is not as if Lincoln was disqualified by anything. He is a perfectly convenable man, and would last. The man that lasts is the best.”

After all, George had shot his bolt and missed, and I was somehow drawn to put him at his best.

“The man that lasts!” she echoed, musing.

“As for his devotion to sport, he could soon be cured of that. Any one with influence,” and I glanced at her, “could mould him. He is worth moulding.”

“Is he?” she said, on a note which sounded harsh.

“I know it,” I said, emphatically. “I have known him all his life.”

“You are such a patriarch,” she said, with a little hard laugh.

“Which is the reason I am sorry for George's misfortune,” I concluded.

“So am I,” she said lightly, and rose. “I will tell him I am sorry I laughed.”

She was indeed very kind to Lincoln during the evening, and his face brightened. Somehow I saw little of her, but before I went to bed I met George, who was beaming, and explained that he had hunted for me all over the house.

“I was only in the library,” said I.

“Well, old chap, I owe all to you,” said he, grinning like a Barbary ape.

“Owe what?” said I crossly, for I was tired.

“My good fortune, my happiness, my.... Oh, damn it, Weston, I'm off my head about it.”

“If you will kindly condescend to explain what has driven you mad” I began calmly.

“Miss Livingston has accepted me.”

I nearly dropped the candle. “But she refused you down by the stream,” I almost shouted.

“No; I hadn't got as far as proposing,” he said. “I was trying to screw myself up, and indeed I was just going to do it when I somehow slipped off the bridge. After that, you know, hang it all, a fellow couldn't”

Well, I got rid of him and went to bed, and the “pale soft sweet disempassioned moon” shone on the cedars on the lawn. After all, the hamadryad answered to that description. Attended with her retinue of haggards she was like Diana. Or—was she not?

I saw her ere I left Pleating the next day, and wished her happiness, She replied sweetly enough, with pallor in her cheeks rather than the blush of confusion. I left her on the terrace in the April sunlight, and when the carriage turned the sweep of the drive I looked back and saw her, half a mile away. She was in the same place, a still and fragile figure, and I wondered if she also were looking. I could not tell—it was so far off. I think so. No; I suppose I should not have hoped so.