ts of the college windows. Against this soft suffusion
of light the Library cupola assumed a Bramantesque grace, the white
steeple of the congregational church became a campanile topped by a
winged spirit, and the scant porticoes of the older halls the
colonnades of classic temples.

"This is better--" Dawnish said, as they passed down the steps and
under the shadow of the elms.

They moved on a little way in silence before he began again: "You're
too tired to walk. Let us sit down a few minutes."

Her feet, in truth, were leaden, and not far off a group of park
benches, encircling the pedestal of a patriot in bronze, invited them
to rest. But Dawnish was guiding her toward a lateral path which bent,
through shrubberies, toward a strip of turf between two of the
buildings.

"It will be cooler by the river," he said, moving on without waiting
for a possible protest. None came: it seemed easier, for the moment, to
let herself be led without any conventional feint of resistance. And
besides, there was nothing wrong about _this_--the wrong would have
been in sitting up there in the glare, pretending to listen to her
husband, a dutiful wife among her kind....

The path descended, as both knew, to the chosen, the inimitable spot of
Wentworth: that fugitive curve of the river, where, before hurrying on
to glut the brutal industries of South Wentworth and Smedden, it
simulated for a few hundred yards the leisurely pace of an ancient
university stream, with willows on its banks and a stretch of turf
extending from the grounds of Hamblin Hall to the boat houses at the
farther bend. Here too were benches, beneath the willows, and so close
to the river that the voice of its gliding softened and filled out the
reverberating silence between Margaret and her companion, and made her
feel that she knew why he had brought her there.

"Do you feel better?" he asked gently as he sat down beside her.

"Oh, yes. I only needed a little air."

"I'm so glad you did. Of course the speeches were tremendously
interesting--but I prefer this. What a good night!"

"Yes."

There was a pause, which now, after all, the soothing accompaniment of
the river seemed hardly sufficient to fill.

"I wonder what time it is. I ought to be going home," Margaret began at
length.

"Oh, it's not late. They'll be at it for hours in there--yet."

She made a faint inarticulate sound. She wanted to say: "No--Robert's
speech was to be the last--" but she