ell through the curtains, casting the wild roses' shadow
across the sill; the scent of lilacs filled the silence.

"It's curious--and sad," he said in a low voice. "How odd that I should
come here to the very spot where that old ancestor of mine died----"

"He was only twenty when he died," she interrupted.

"I know. But somehow a fellow seems to think of any ancestor as a snuffy
old codger----"

"He was very handsome," she said, flushing up.

There was a silence; then she looked around at him with a glint of humour
in her pretty eyes--one hazel-brown, one hazel tinged with grey; and the
delicious mouth no longer drooped.

"Can't you imagine him as young as you are? gay, humorous, full of
mischievous life, and the love of life? something of a dandy in his
uniform--and his queue tied smartly a la Francaise!--gallant--oh,
gallant and brave in the dragoon's helmet and jack-boots of Sheldon's
Horse! Why, he used to come jingling and clattering into this room and
catch his young wife and plague and banter and caress her till she fled
for refuge, and he after her, like a pair of school children
released--through the bed-rooms, out by the kitchen, and into the garden,
till he caught her again in the orchard yonder and held her tight and
made her press her palms together and recite:

_I love thee_
_I love thee_
_Through all the week and Sunday_

--until for laughing and folly--I--they----"

To his amazement her voice broke; into her strange eyes sprang tears, and
she turned swiftly away and went and stood by the curtained window.

"Well, by gad!" he thought, "of all morbid little things! affected to
tears by what happened to somebody else a hundred and thirty odd years
ago! Women are sure the limit!"

And in more suitable terms he asked her why she should make herself
unhappy.

She said: "I _am_ happy. It is only when I am here that I am lonely and
the dead past lives again among these wooded hills."

"Are you not--usually--here?" he asked, surprised. "I thought you lived
here."

"No. I live elsewhere, usually. I am too unhappy here. I never remain
very long."

"Then why do you ever come here?" he asked, amused.

"I don't know. I am very happy elsewhere. But--I come. Women do such
things."

"I don't exactly understand why."

"A woman's thoughts return eternally to one place and one person. _One_
memory is her ruling passion."

"What is that memory?"

"_The Place and the