ent for a little while. Then his voice sounded in the night,
as if he spoke to himself. "But as for the God of All Things consoling
and helping! Imagine it! That up there--having fellowship with me! I
would as soon think of cooling my throat with the Milky Way or shaking
hands with those stars."

CHAPTER THE FIFTH

IN THE LAND OF THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLES

Section 1

A gust of confidence on the part of a person naturally or habitually
reserved will often be followed by a phase of recoil. At breakfast
next morning their overnight talk seemed to both Sir Richmond and
Dr. Martineau like something each had dreamt about the other, a quite
impossible excess of intimacy. They discussed the weather, which seemed
to be settling down to the utmost serenity of which the English spring
is capable, they talked of Sir Richmond's coming car and of the possible
routes before them. Sir Richmond produced the Michelin maps which he
had taken out of the pockets of the little Charmeuse. The Bath Road lay
before them, he explained, Reading, Newbury, Hungerford, Marlborough,
Silbury Hill which overhangs Avebury. Both travellers discovered a
common excitement at the mention of Avebury and Silbury Hill. Both took
an intelligent interest in archaeology. Both had been greatly stimulated
by the recent work of Elliot Smith and Rivers upon what was then known
as the Heliolithic culture. It had revived their interest in Avebury and
Stonehenge. The doctor moreover had been reading Hippisley Cox's GREEN
ROADS OF ENGLAND.

Neither gentleman had ever seen Avebury, but Dr. Martineau had once
visited Stonehenge.

"Avebury is much the oldest," said the doctor. "They must have made
Silbury Hill long before 2000 B.C. It may be five thousand years old
or even more. It is the most important historical relic in the British
Isles. And the most neglected."

They exchanged archaeological facts. The secret places of the heart
rested until the afternoon.

Then Sir Richmond saw fit to amplify his confessions in one particular.

Section 2

The doctor and his patient had discovered a need for exercise as the
morning advanced. They had walked by the road to Marlow and had lunched
at a riverside inn, returning after a restful hour in an arbour on the
lawn of this place to tea at Maidenhead. It was as they returned that
Sir Richmond took up the thread of their overnight conversation again.

"In the night," he said, "I was thinking over the account I tried