water-hen was crying, and in the moonlight a
kingfisher flew across. The wonder on the river--the wonder of the moon
and trees, the soft bright mist, the stillness! It was like another
world, peaceful, enchanted, far holier than ours. It seemed like a vision
of the thoughts that come to one--how seldom! and go if one tries to
grasp them. Magic--poetry-sacred!" He was silent a minute, then went on
in a wistful voice: "I looked at her, sleeping like a child, with her
hair loose, and her lips apart, and I thought: 'God do so to me, if ever
I bring her pain!' How was I to understand her? the mystery and
innocence of her soul! The river has had all my light and all my
darkness, the happiest days, and the hours when I've despaired; and I
like to think of it, for, you know, in time bitter memories fade, only
the good remain.... Yet the good have their own pain, a different kind
of aching, for we shall never get them back. Sir," he said, turning to
me with a faint smile, "it's no use crying over spilt milk.... In the
neighbourhood of Lucy's inn, the Rose and Maybush--Can you imagine a
prettier name? I have been all over the world, and nowhere found names
so pretty as in the English country. There, too, every blade of grass;
and flower, has a kind of pride about it; knows it will be cared for; and
all the roads, trees, and cottages, seem to be certain that they will
live for ever.... But I was going to tell you: Half a mile from the inn
was a quiet old house which we used to call the 'Convent'--though I
believe it was a farm. We spent many afternoons there, trespassing in
the orchard--Eilie was fond of trespassing; if there were a long way
round across somebody else's property, she would always take it. We spent
our last afternoon in that orchard, lying in the long grass. I was
reading Childe Harold for the first time--a wonderful, a memorable poem!
I was at that passage--the bull-fight--you remember:

"'Thrice sounds the clarion; lo! the signal falls,
The din expands, and expectation mute'

--"when suddenly Eilie said: 'Suppose I were to leave off loving you?' It
was as if some one had struck me in the face. I jumped up, and tried to
take her in my arms, but she slipped away; then she turned, and began
laughing softly. I laughed too. I don't know why...."

VI

"We went back to London the next day; we lived quite close to the school,
and about five days a week Dalton came to dine with us. He