coanuts and they had pledged themselves in the green wine. Then they
had returned to the shade and talked--what had they not talked about?
Anne opened the sealed book of the past five years of which he had
been the hero. He read it with amazement and delight, but contrite
that he had received no message from that turbulent young brain by the
North Sea. But he atoned by confessing that he had recognised her as
his own the moment he laid eyes on her, that she was all and more than
he had once modelled in the mists of his brain. He demanded every
detail of that long union, so imaginative and so real, and told Anne
that never before had a poet had the fortune to meet a woman who was a
locked fountain of poetry, yet who revealed the sparkling flood by a
method of her own with which no words could compete.

"And will you write my poems?" Anne had asked eagerly. But he had
drawn down a broad leaf between his face and hers. "I told you that I
was a poet no longer--merely a lover. To know absolute happiness in
two forms in this world you must take them in turn. I shall write no
more."

"Were you perfectly happy when you wrote?" asked Anne, a little
jealously.

"Perfectly."

"I can almost understand it."

"I can no more express it than I have ever been able to tell in verse
the half of what I blindly conceived."

"I should think that might have clouded your happiness."

"Yes--when a poem was revolving and seething in my distracted head.
Never tempt me to write, for while the thing is gestating I am a
brute, moody, irritable, unhappy. The whole poem seems to work itself
out remorselessly before I can put pen to paper, and at the same time
is enveloped in a mist. I catch glimpses like will-o'-the-wisps in a
fog bank, sudden visions of perfect form that seem to turn to grinning
masks. It is maddening! But when the great moment arrives and I am at
my desk I am the happiest man on earth."

By tacit consent the subject of the stimulants under which he had
always written was ignored, as well as the terrible chapter of his
life which it was her blessed fortune to close. They had discussed the
future, talked of practical things. He had told her that his house
could be put in order while they travelled among the islands, and that
he made quite enough to support her properly if they lived on Nevis.
She had three hundred a year and would have more did she consent to
let the manor for a longer term, and he had assured her that hers