indow, and there sprang into his
mind Megan's prayer, repeated by little Nick: "God bless us all, and Mr.
Ashes!" Who else would ever say a prayer for him, like her who at this
moment must be waiting--waiting to see him come down the lane? And he
thought suddenly: 'What a scoundrel I am!'

All that evening this thought kept coming back; but, as is not unusual,
each time with less poignancy, till it seemed almost a matter of course
to be a scoundrel. And--strange!--he did not know whether he was a
scoundrel if he meant to go back to Megan, or if he did not mean to go
back to her.

They played cards till the children were sent off to bed; then Stella
went to the piano. From over on the window seat, where it was nearly
dark, Ashurst watched her between the candles--that fair head on the
long, white neck bending to the movement of her hands. She played
fluently, without much expression; but what a Picture she made, the
faint golden radiance, a sort of angelic atmosphere hovering about her!
Who could have passionate thoughts or wild desires in the presence of
that swaying, white-clothed girl with the seraphic head? She played a
thing of Schumann's called "Warum?" Then Halliday brought out a flute,
and the spell was broken. After this they made Ashurst sing, Stella
playing him accompaniments from a book of Schumann songs, till, in
the middle of "Ich grolle nicht," two small figures clad in blue
dressing-gowns crept in and tried to conceal themselves beneath the
piano. The evening broke up in confusion, and what Sabina called "a
splendid rag."

That night Ashurst hardly slept at all. He was thinking, tossing and
turning. The intense domestic intimacy of these last two days, the
strength of this Halliday atmosphere, seemed to ring him round, and make
the farm and Megan--even Megan--seem unreal. Had he really made love
to her--really promised to take her away to live with him? He must have
been bewitched by the spring, the night, the apple blossom! This May
madness could but destroy them both! The notion that he was going to
make her his mistress--that simple child not yet eighteen--now filled
him with a sort of horror, even while it still stung and whipped his
blood. He muttered to himself: "It's awful, what I've done--awful!"
And the sound of Schumann's music throbbed and mingled with his fevered
thoughts, and he saw again Stella's cool, white, fair-haired figure
and bending neck, the queer, angelic radiance about her. 'I m