rse and heather seemed still radiating light, as though the air had
been so drenched in sunshine that even long after the sun had vanished
the invading darkness found itself still unable to win firm possession
of earth and sky. Every little stone in the sandy road was still weirdly
visible: the color of the heather, now in lavish bloom, could be felt
though hardly seen.

Before him melted line after line of woodland, broken by hollow after
hollow, filled with vaporous wreaths of mist. About him were the
sounds of a wild nature. The air was resonant with the purring of the
night-jars, and every now and then he caught the loud clap of their
wings as they swayed unsteadily through the furze and bracken. Overhead
a trio of wild ducks flew across, from pond to pond, their hoarse cry
descending through the darkness. The partridges on the hill called to
each other, and certain sharp sounds betrayed to the solitary listener
the presence of a flock of swans on a neighboring pool.

The Rector felt himself alone on a wide earth. It was almost with a sort
of pleasure that he caught at last the barking of dogs on a few distant
farms, or the dim thunderous rush of a train through the wide wooded
landscape beyond the heath. Behind that frowning, mass of wood lay the
rectory. The lights must be lit in the little drawing-room; Catherine
must be sitting by the lamp, her fine head bent over book or work,
grieving for him perhaps, her anxious expectant heart going out to him
through the dark. He thinks of the village lying wrapped in the peace
of the August night, the lamp rays from shop-front or casement streaming
out on to the green; he thinks of his child, of his dead mother feeling
heavy and bitter within him all the time the message of separation and
exile.

But his mood was no longer one of mere dread, of helpless pain, of
miserable self-scorn. Contact with Henry Grey had brought him that
rekindling of the flame of conscience, that medicinal stirring of the
soul's waters, which is the most precious boon that man can give to man.
In that sense which attaches to every successive resurrection of our
best life from the shades of despair or selfishness, he had that day,
almost that hour, been born again. He was no longer filled mainly
with the sense of personal failure, with scorn for his own blundering,
impetuous temper, so lacking in prescience and in balance; or, in
respect to his wife, with such an anguished impotent remorse. He was