I'll ride her ladyship's hunter. (My hunter, damn the
fellow," he said, under his breath.) "And tell the bailiff I shall
want him; let him come round on his horse. I shall go over the farms
with him."

The morning was chilly. He stood before the fire while the butler
brought in eggs, kidneys, devilled legs of fowl, and coffee. The
beauty of the coffee-pot caught his eye, and he admired the plate
that made such rich effect on the old Chippendale sideboard. The
peacocks on the window-sills, knocking with their strong beaks for
bread, pleased him; they recalled evenings passed with Helen; she had
often spoken of her love for these birds. He went to the window with
bread for the peacocks, and the landscape came into his eyes: the
clump of leafless trees on the left, rugged and untidy with rooks'
nests; the hollow, dipping plain, melancholy of aspect now, misty,
gray and brown beneath a lowering sky, dipping and then rising in a
long, wide shape, and ringing the sky with a brown line. The terrace
with its straight walks, balustrades, urns, and closely-cropped yews
was a romantic note, severe, even harsh.

One day, wandering from room to room, he found himself in Helen's
bedroom. "There is the bed she died in, there is the wardrobe." Mike
opened the wardrobe. He turned the dresses over, seeking for those he
knew; but he had not seen her for three years, and there were new
dresses, and he had forgotten the old. Suddenly he came upon one of
soft, blue material, and he remembered she wore that dress the first
time she sat on his knees. Feeling the need of an expressive action,
he buried his face in the pale blue dress, seeking in its softness
and odour commemoration of her who lay beneath the pavement. How
desolate was the room! He would not linger. This room must be forever
closed, left to the silence, the mildew, the dust, and the moth. None
must enter here but he, it must be sacred from other feet. Once a
year, on her anniversary, he would come to mourn her, and not on the
anniversary of her death, but on that of their first kiss. He had
forgotten the exact day, and feared he had not preserved all her
letters. Perhaps she had preserved his.

Moved with such an idea he passed out of her bedroom, and calling for
_his_ keys, went into her boudoir and opened her escritoire, and very
soon he found his letters; almost the first he read, ran as follows--

"MY DEAR HELEN,

"I am much obliged to you for your kind invitation.