r garden-plot, as yet uncultivated,
and its high boundary wall, ran the great silent thoroughfare, Trafalgar
Road, whose gas-lamps reigned in the nocturnal silence that the last
steam-car had left in its wake.

Hilda gazed at the house; and it seemed strange to her that the house,
which but a short time ago had no existence whatever, and was yet cold
and soulless, was destined to be the living home of a family, with
history in its walls and memories clinging about it. The formidable
magic of life was always thus discovering itself to her, so that she
could not look upon even an untenanted, terra-cotta-faced villa without
a secret thrill; and the impenetrable sky above was not more charmed and
enchanted than those brick walls. When she reflected that one day the
wistful, boyish Edwin Clayhanger would be the master of that house, that
in that house his will would be stronger than any other will, the
mystery that hides beneath the surface of all things surged up and
overwhelmed thought. And although scarcely a couple of hours had elapsed
since the key of the new life had been put into her hands, she could not
make an answer when she asked herself: "Am I happy or unhappy?"

II

The sound of young men's voices came round the corner of the house from
the lawn. Some of the brothers Orgreave were saying good-night to Edwin
Clayhanger in the porch. She knew that they had been chatting a long
time in the hall, after Clayhanger had bidden adieu to the rest of the
family. She wondered what they had been talking about, and what young
men did in general talk about when they were by themselves and
confidential. In her fancy she endowed their conversations with the
inexplicable attractiveness of masculinity, as masculinity is understood
by women alone. She had an intense desire to overhear such a
conversation, and she felt that she would affront the unguessed perils
of it with delight, drinking it up eagerly, every drop, even were the
draught deadly. Meanwhile, the mere inarticulate sound of those distant
voices pleased her, and she was glad that she was listening and that the
boys knew it not.

Silence succeeded the banging of the front door. And then, after a
pause, she was startled to hear the crunching of gravel almost under her
window. In alarm she dropped the blind, but continued to peer between
the edge of the blind and the window-frame. At one point the contiguous
demesnes of the Orgreaves and the Clayhangers were separat