rules and rigid barriers--coffins of happiness! That doors should be
closed on love and joy! There was not so much of it in the world! She,
who was the very spirit of this flying, nymph-like summer, was untimely
wintered-up in bleak sorrow. There was a hateful unwisdom in that
thought; it seemed so grim and violent, so corpse-like, gruesome, narrow
and extravagant! What possible end could it serve that she should be
unhappy! Even if he had not loved her, he would have hated her fate just
as much--all such stories of imprisoned lives had roused his anger even
as a boy.

Soft white clouds--those bright angels of the river, never very long
away--had begun now to spread their wings over the woods; and the
wind had dropped so that the slumbrous warmth and murmuring of summer
gathered full over the water. The old gardener had finished his job of
mowing, and came with a little basket of grain to feed the doves. Lennan
watched them going to him, the ring-doves, very dainty, and capricious,
keeping to themselves. In place of that old fellow, he was really seeing
HER, feeding from her hands those birds of Cypris. What a group he could
have made of her with them perching and flying round her! If she were
his, what could he not achieve--to make her immortal--like the old
Greeks and Italians, who, in their work, had rescued their mistresses
from Time! . . .

He was back in his rooms in London two hours before he dared begin
expecting her. Living alone there but for a caretaker who came every
morning for an hour or two, made dust, and departed, he had no need
for caution. And when he had procured flowers, and the fruits and cakes
which they certainly would not eat--when he had arranged the tea-table,
and made the grand tour at least twenty times, he placed himself with a
book at the little round window, to watch for her approach. There, very
still, he sat, not reading a word, continually moistening his dry lips
and sighing, to relieve the tension of his heart. At last he saw her
coming. She was walking close to the railings of the houses, looking
neither to right nor left. She had on a lawn frock, and a hat of the
palest coffee-coloured straw, with a narrow black velvet ribbon. She
crossed the side street, stopped for a second, gave a swift look round,
then came resolutely on. What was it made him love her so? What was the
secret of her fascination? Certainly, no conscious enticements. Never
did anyone try less to fascinate. He co