nd here to
try and collect some compensation."

"Is that really all, Eustace?" she went on anxiously. "You seemed very
much disturbed, dear. I don't think I ever saw you look so thoroughly
disturbed."

There was no perturbation left in his glance now. He took her face
lovingly between his hands and kissed it again and again.

"Did you not, my sweet? Well, perhaps there has never existed such
ground for it. Perhaps I have never met with so inopportune an
interruption. But now, cheer up. We must make the most of this day,
for a sort of instinct tells me that it is the last we shall have to
ourselves, at any rate for some time to come. And now what shall we do
with ourselves? Shall we go back to the house or sit here a little
while and talk?"

Eanswyth was in favour of the latter plan. And, seated there in the
shade of a great acacia, the rich summer morning sped by in a golden
dream. The fair panorama of distant hills and wooded kloofs; the
radiant sunlight upon the wide sweep of mimosa-dotted plains, shimmering
into many a fantastic mirage in the glowing heat; the call of bird
voices in the adjacent brake, and the continuous chirrup of crickets;
the full, warm glow of the sensuous air, rich, permeating, life-giving;
here indeed was a very Eden. Thus the golden morning sped swiftly by.

But how was it all to end? That was the black drop clouding the
sparkling cup--that was the trail of the serpent across that sunny Eden.
And yet not, for it may be that this very rift but served only to
enhance the intoxicating, thrilling delights of the present--that this
idyl of happiness, unlawful alike in the sight of God or man, was a
hundredfold sweetened by the sad vein of undercurrent running through
it--even the consciousness that it was not to last. For do we not, in
the weak contrariety of our mortal natures, value a thing in exact
proportion to the precariousness of our tenure!

Come good, come ill, never would either of them forget that day: short,
golden, idyllic.

"Guess how long we have been sitting here!" said Eanswyth at last, with
a rapid glance at her watch. "No--don't look," she added hurriedly, "I
want you to _guess_."

"About half an hour, it seems. But I suppose it must be more than
that."

"Exactly two hours and ten minutes."

"Two hours and ten minutes of our last peaceful day together--gone. Of
our first and our last day together."

"Why do you say our last, dear?" she murmured, to