ety to prove to herself that surely
all things are not in vain.

"Oh, no! They are the frailest of the three," returns he; "they are like
our dearest hopes. At the very time they should prove true, when the
cold Winter of our discontent is full upon us, they forsake us--never to
return."

"Never? Does not the Summer bring them again?" She has stopped in the
middle of the path, and is asking her question with an anxiety that
astonishes even herself. "This rose bush," she says, pointing to one
close beside her, "now rich in glory, and warm with golden wealth, will
it not bloom again next year, in spite of the death that must pass over
it?"

"It may. But you will never see again those roses over there, that you
love and rejoice in now! Others may be like them, but they cannot be
quite the same."

Portia makes no reply. The moonlight is full upon him, and she can see
that his lips have lost their hardness, and are as full of melancholy as
his eyes. She is looking curiously at him, regarding him perhaps in the
light of a study--he is looking, not at her at all, but at something
that surely has no place in this quiet garden, lying so calm and
peaceful beneath the light of heaven.

A terrible expression, that is despair and grief commingled, covers his
face. Some past horror, that has yet power to sting, is holding him
captive. He has forgotten Portia, the beauty of the night, everything!
He is wrapt in some miserable memory that will not be laid. Surely, "the
heart may break, yet brokenly live on."

Be he guilty (as she believes him) of this crime that has darkened his
life, or only the victim of unhappy circumstances, at this moment Portia
pities him with all her heart.

Voices in the distance! Roger and Dulce still high in argument; a faint
perfume of cigarettes; Dicky Browne's irrepressible laugh; and then they
all come round the corner, and somebody says, "Ah, here she is," and
Dicky Browne places a shawl round Portia's shoulders.

"You here, Fabian?" says Dulce, gladly. "And making friends with Portia?
That's right."

"Taking a mean advantage of us all I call it," says Dicky Browne. "_We_
got introduced in the cruel glare of day, with all our imperfections on
our heads. _You_ waited for moonshine, balmy air, scent of roses,
poetical effect, and so on! That's why you stayed away from dinner. And
to think none of us saw through you! Well, I always said I was very
innocent; quite unfit to go about alone!"

"No