est was an effort exhausting the idea.

They passed out of Esslemont gates together at that hour of the late
afternoon when South-westerly breezes, after a summer gale, drive their
huge white flocks over blue fields fresh as morning, on the march to
pile the crown of the sphere, and end a troubled day with grandeur. Up
the lane by the park they had open land to the heights of Croridge.

'Splendid clouds,' Fleetwood remarked.

She looked up, thinking of the happy long day's walk with her brother to
the Styrian Baths. Pleasure in the sight made her face shine superbly.
'A flying Switzerland, Mr. Woodseer says,' she replied. 'England is
beautiful on days like these.--For walking, I think the English climate
very good.'

He dropped a murmur: 'It should suit so good a walker,' and burned to
compliment--her spirited easy stepping, and scorned himself for the
sycophancy it would be before they were on the common ground of a
restored understanding. But an approval of any of her acts threatened
him with enthusiasm for the whole of them, her person included; and a
dam in his breast had to keep back the flood.

'You quote Woodseer to me, Carinthia. I wish you knew Lord Feltre. He
can tell you of every cathedral, convent, and monastery in Europe and
Syria. Nature is well enough; she is, as he says, a savage. Men's works,
acting under divine direction to escape from that tangle, are better
worthy of study, perhaps. If one has done wrong, for example.'

'I could listen to him,' she said.

'You would not need--except, yes, one thing. Your father's book speaks
of not forgiving an injury.'

'My father does. He thinks it weakness to forgive an injury. Women do,
and are disgraced, they are thought slavish. My brother is much stronger
than I am. He is my father alive in that.'

'It is anti-Christian, some would think.'

'Let offending people go. He would not punish them. They may go where
they will be forgiven. For them our religion is a happy retreat; we are
glad they have it. My father and my brother say that injury forbids us
to be friends again. My father was injured by the English Admiralty:
he never forgave it; but he would have fought one of their ships and
offered his blood any day, if his country called to battle.'

'You have the same feeling, you mean.'

'I am a woman. I follow my brother, whatever he decides. It is not to
say he is the enemy of persons offending him; only that they have put
the division.'

'They