in the same quiet, dispassionate
undertone, 'I wouldn't mind if it was only myself. But there are so many
of us, so many selves, I mean; and they all seem to have a voice in the
matter. What is the reality to this infernal dream?'

'The reality is, Lawford, that you are fretting your life out over this
rotten illusion. Be guided by me just this once. We'll go, all three
of us, a good ten-mile walk to-day, and thoroughly tire you out. And
to-night you shall sleep here--a really sound, refreshing sleep. Then
to-morrow, whole and hale, back you shall go; honestly. It's only
professional strong men should ask questions. Babes like you and me must
keep to slops.'

So, though Lawford made no answer, it was agreed. Before noon the three
of them had set out on their walk across the fields. And after rambling
on just as caprice took them, past reddening blackberry bushes and
copses of hazel, and flaming beech, they sat down to spread out their
meal on the slope of a hill, overlooking quiet ploughed fields and
grazing cattle. Herbert stretched himself with his back to the earth,
and his placid face to the pale vacant sky, while Lawford, even more
dispirited after his walk, wandered up to the crest of the hill.

At the foot of the hill, upon the other side, lay a farm and its
out-buildings, and a pool of water beneath a group of elms. It was
vacant in the sunlight, and the water vividly green with a scum of weed.
And about half a mile beyond stood a cluster of cottages and an old
towered church. He gazed idly down, listening vaguely to the wailing of
a curlew flitting anxiously to and fro above the broken solitude of
its green hill. And it seemed as if a thin and dark cloud began to be
quietly withdrawn from over his eyes. Hill and wailing cry and barn and
water faded out. And he was staring as if in an endless stillness at an
open window against which the sun was beating in a bristling torrent of
gold, while out of the garden beyond came the voice of some evening bird
singing with such an unspeakable ecstasy of grief it seemed it must
be perched upon the confines of another world. The light gathered to a
radiance almost intolerable, driving back with its raining beams some
memory, forlorn, remorseless, remote. His body stood dark and senseless,
rocking in the air on the hillside as if bereft of its spirit. Then his
hands were drawn over his eyes. He turned unsteadily and made his way,
as if through a thick, drizzling haze, slo