r hair, and eyes, and
hands, and of the pale dress she wore; but her presence seemed revealed
to him through the exaltation of some sense latent or non-existent in
him in his waking moods. His delight was of the understanding, for they
neither touched hands nor spoke. A little surprise rose to the surface
of his rapture--surprise at the fact that he experienced no pang of
jealousy. She had said that true love could not exist without jealousy!
But was she right in this? It seemed to him that we begin to love when
we cease to judge. If she were different she wouldn't be herself, and it
was herself he loved--the mystery of her sunny, singing nature. There
is no judgment where there is perfect sympathy, and he understood that
it would be as vain for him to lament that her eyebrows were fair as to
lament or reprove her conduct.

Continuing the same train of thought, he remembered that, though she was
young to-day, she would pass into middle, maybe old age; that the day
would come when her hair would be less bright, her figure would lose its
willowness; but these changes would not lessen his love for her. Should
he not welcome change? Thinking that perhaps fruit-time is better than
blossom-time, he foresaw a deeper love awaiting him, and a tenderness
that he could not feel to-day might be his in years to come. Nor could
habit blunt his perceptions or intimacy unravel the mystery of her sunny
nature. So the bourne could never be reached; for when everything had
been said, something would remain unspoken. The two rhythms out of which
the music of life is made, intimacy and adventure, would meet, would
merge, and become one; and she, who was to-day an adventure, would
become in the end the home of his affections.

A great bird swooped out of the branches above him, startling him, and
he cried out: 'An owl--only an owl!' The wood was quiet and dark, and in
fear he groped his way to the old stones; for one thing still remained
to be done before he left--he must burn her letters.

He burnt them one by one, shielding the flame with his hand lest it
should attract some passer-by, and when the last was burnt he feared no
longer anything. His wonder was why he had hesitated, why his mind had
been torn by doubt. At the back of his mind he had always known he was
going. Had he not written saying he was going, and wasn't that enough?
And he thought for a moment of what her opinion of him would be if he
stayed in Garranard. In a cowardly