the bloom and texture
of old red velvet, and the patches of gold lichen spreading over them
looked like the last traces of a dim embroidery. The dome of the chapel,
with its gilded cross, rose above one wing, and the other ended in a
conical pigeon-house, above which the birds were flying, lustrous and
slatey, their breasts merged in the blue of the roof when they dropped
down on it.

"And this is where you've been all these years."

They turned away and began to walk down a long tunnel of yellowing
trees. Benches with mossy feet stood against the mossy edges of the
path, and at its farther end it widened into a circle about a basin
rimmed with stone, in which the opaque water strewn with leaves looked
like a slab of gold-flecked agate. The path, growing narrower, wound on
circuitously through the woods, between slender serried trunks twined
with ivy. Patches of blue appeared above them through the dwindling
leaves, and presently the trees drew back and showed the open fields
along the river.

They walked on across the fields to the tow-path. In a curve of the wall
some steps led up to a crumbling pavilion with openings choked with ivy.
Anna and Darrow seated themselves on the bench projecting from the inner
wall of the pavilion and looked across the river at the slopes divided
into blocks of green and fawn-colour, and at the chalk-tinted village
lifting its squat church-tower and grey roofs against the precisely
drawn lines of the landscape. Anna sat silent, so intensely aware of
Darrow's nearness that there was no surprise in the touch he laid on her
hand. They looked at each other, and he smiled and said: "There are to
be no more obstacles now."

"Obstacles?" The word startled her. "What obstacles?"

"Don't you remember the wording of the telegram that turned me back
last May? 'Unforeseen obstacle': that was it. What was the earth-shaking
problem, by the way? Finding a governess for Effie, wasn't it?"

"But I gave you my reason: the reason why it was an obstacle. I wrote
you fully about it."

"Yes, I know you did." He lifted her hand and kissed it. "How far off it
all seems, and how little it all matters today!"

She looked at him quickly. "Do you feel that? I suppose I'm different. I
want to draw all those wasted months into today--to make them a part of
it."

"But they are, to me. You reach back and take everything--back to the
first days of all."

She frowned a little, as if struggling with an inartic