," said Robinette. She leaned
on the wall and looked out at the shining reaches of the river. "The
swelling of Jordan is over now," she said with a little smile and a
sigh. "The tide has come up, and how quiet everything is!"

The water mirrored the hills and the ships and the gracious sky above
them. There was scarcely a sound in the air. At the point where they
stood, the Manor House was hidden from view, and only the squat old
tower of the church was visible, and the yew tree rising above the
wall against the golden field. A bush of briar covered with white
roses hung above them, just behind Robinette, and Lavendar looking at
her in this English setting on an English Sunday morning, wondered to
himself, as he had so often done before, if she could ever make this
country her home.

"Yet she has English blood as well as I," he thought. "Why, the very
name on the old bells of the church there, records the memory of an
ancestress of hers! We cannot be so far apart." Looking at her
standing there, he rehearsed to himself all that he meant to say, oh,
a great many things both true and eloquent, but at that moment every
word forsook him. Yet this was probably the best opportunity he would
have of telling her what was burning in his heart: telling her how she
had beguiled him at first by her quick understanding and her
frolicsome wit, because all that sort of thing was so new to him. She
had come like a mountain spring to a thirsty man. He had been groping
for inspiration and for help: now he seemed to find them all in her.
She was so much more than charming, though it was her charm that first
impressed him; so much more than pretty, though her face attracted him
at first; so much more than magnetic, though she drew him to her at
their first meeting with bonds as delicate as they were strong. These
were tangible, vital, legitimate qualities--but were they all? Could
lips part so, could eyes shine so, could voice tremble so, if there
were not something underneath; a good heart, fidelity, warmth of
nature?

"For the first time," he thought, "I long to be worthy of a woman. But
I would not tell her how I love her at this moment, unless I felt I
need not be wholly unequal to her demands. I have never desired
anything strongly enough to struggle for it, up to now; but she has
set my springs in motion, and I can work for her until I die!"

All this he thought, but never a word he said. Then the church clock
struck and the cla