ew had left St. Renny a year before
him to study painting in Paris. It was the time when the great Barbizon
school was in its prime, when Diaz and Rousseau and Harpignies and the
rest of that goodly company were heading the return to Nature which the
epoch needed, just as later it was to need, with equal sincerity, a
return to the primitive in art. Killigrew was absorbed by the fervour of
his new creed and wrote but rarely, and his letters were all but
incomprehensible to Ishmael. Not in his moments of freest intercourse
with Phoebe that evening had it been possible to exchange anything
beyond the chatter and playfulness of children, but there was that in
Ishmael to-night which, he being young, had to find outlet. For youth is
the period of giving, as gathering age is of withholding.

Coming home after so long, coming home, moreover, with a meaning
portentous beyond the ordinary attached to the act, had excited Ishmael
unknown to himself. Physically he felt very tired, which he told himself
was absurd, but mentally he was of a joyous alertness. Leaning upon the
stile, he drew a deep breath of the salt air and raised his eyes to the
night sky curving, so high was he placed, for an immense arc about his
tiny form. To the north the Plough trailed its length, but south, high
over the dark blot which to the keen sight of love meant Cloom, Spica,
brilliant crown of Virgo, pulsed whitely, while the glittering
sisterhood of Aquila and Lyra, Corona and Libra swept towards the east,
ushering up the sky the slim young moon, as bright as they but more
serene, like a young mother amidst a flock of heedless girls. How often
had Ishmael counted these same clear callous eyes from sleeping St.
Renny, but never with the answering gleam in his breast that he felt now
he saw them over his own land.

"So life is going to be good, after all," remarked the Parson abruptly.

"Rather. It seems jolly good to-night, anyway. All my life I've been
looking forward to this, just this, coming back here and making
something of it all ... and the funny thing is now it's come I'm not
disappointed."

"Why should you be?"

"I dunno. Only one expects to be when one's been expecting to be happy.
That sounds Irish, but you know what I mean."

"Yes, I know, but then I'm older than you. Why should you have found
that out?"

"Some things--things like that--one doesn't find out by what happens.
One sort of knows them to start with. It's funny too, because