ond again. The
morning had been windy, and little showers had sowed themselves like
grain against the walls and window-panes of the Hintock cottages. He
went on foot across the wilder recesses of the park, where slimy
streams of green moisture, exuding from decayed holes caused by old
amputations, ran down the bark of the oaks and elms, the rind below
being coated with a lichenous wash as green as emerald. They were
stout-trunked trees, that never rocked their stems in the fiercest
gale, responding to it entirely by crooking their limbs. Wrinkled like
an old crone's face, and antlered with dead branches that rose above
the foliage of their summits, they were nevertheless still
green--though yellow had invaded the leaves of other trees.

She was in a little boudoir or writing-room on the first floor, and
Fitzpiers was much surprised to find that the window-curtains were
closed and a red-shaded lamp and candles burning, though out-of-doors
it was broad daylight. Moreover, a large fire was burning in the
grate, though it was not cold.

"What does it all mean?" he asked.

She sat in an easy-chair, her face being turned away. "Oh," she
murmured, "it is because the world is so dreary outside. Sorrow and
bitterness in the sky, and floods of agonized tears beating against the
panes. I lay awake last night, and I could hear the scrape of snails
creeping up the window-glass; it was so sad! My eyes were so heavy this
morning that I could have wept my life away. I cannot bear you to see
my face; I keep it away from you purposely. Oh! why were we given
hungry hearts and wild desires if we have to live in a world like this?
Why should Death only lend what Life is compelled to borrow--rest?
Answer that, Dr. Fitzpiers."

"You must eat of a second tree of knowledge before you can do it,
Felice Charmond."

"Then, when my emotions have exhausted themselves, I become full of
fears, till I think I shall die for very fear. The terrible
insistencies of society--how severe they are, and cold and
inexorable--ghastly towards those who are made of wax and not of stone.
Oh, I am afraid of them; a stab for this error, and a stab for
that--correctives and regulations framed that society may tend to
perfection--an end which I don't care for in the least. Yet for this,
all I do care for has to be stunted and starved."

Fitzpiers had seated himself near her. "What sets you in this mournful
mood?" he asked, gently. (In reality he kn