l probably be furious over the delay, but she has developed a will of
her own lately.

'_Au revoir_ then. You must have had a peaceful summer with your books
and your heather. I wish I had anything like the same digestion for work
that you have; I never saw a man get as much pleasure out of his books as
you do. To me, I confess, that work is always work, and idleness a joy!

'However, no more idleness for me for a good while to come. How grand she
will be in that last act!--Where were my eyes last spring?--I wish there
were a chance of her seeing much that is interesting in Paris. However,
flat as September generally is, she will get some Moliere at the
_Francais_, and your sister will take care that she sees the right
people. Perrault, I hear, is to give her lessons--under the rose. Happy
man!'

* * * * *

Kendal read this letter on a glowing August morning as he walked homeward
along the side of the pond, where the shade of the fir-trees was a
welcome protection against the rising heat, and the air was fragrant with
the scent of the ling, which was just out in all its first faint flush of
beauty. He threw himself down among it after he had finished the sheets,
and stared for long at the sunlit motionless water, his hat drawn forward
over his brows. So this was the outcome of it all. Isabel Bretherton was
about to become a great actress,--Undine had found her soul!

It seemed to him, as he lay there buried in the ling, that during the
past three weeks he had lived through a whole drama of feeling--a drama
which had its beginning, its complications, its climax. While it had been
going on he had been only half-conscious of its bearings, half-conscious
of himself. Wallace's letter had made him sensible of the situation, as
it concerned himself, with a decisive sharpness and completeness. There
was no possibility of any further self-delusion: the last defences were
overcome, the last veil between himself and the pursuing force which had
overtaken him had fallen, and Kendal, with a shiver of pain, found
himself looking straight into the wide, hungry eyes of Love! Oh, was this
love,--this sore desire, this dumb craving, this restlessness of the
whole being?

The bees hummed among the heather, every now and then a little
brown-streaked lizard rustled faintly beside him, a pair of kingfishers
flashed across the pond. But he saw and heard nothing, responsive as
every sense in him commonly wa