nd pillars overrun by a flood of roses of every
shade, from deep crimson to snow white. The lawn was surrounded by
shrubberies and plantations, and beyond it there was nothing to be seen
except the opposite woods and the river, and sometimes boats passing by
with a measured sound of oars in the rowlocks, or the temporary
commotion of a little steam-launch. It looked a respectable early
Victorian house, but it had never been quite that, for it had been
built by George Goring's father fifty years earlier, and he himself had
spent much of his boyhood there.

Everything and every one seemed asleep, except a young man in flannels
with a flapping hat hanging over his eyes, who stood at the end of a
punt and pretended to fish. There was no one to look at him or at the
house behind him, and if there had been observers, they would not have
guessed that they were looking at the Garden of Eden and that he was
Adam. Only last evening he and that fair Eve of his had stood by the
river in the moonlight, where the shattering hawthorn-bloom made the air
heavy with sweetness, and had spoken to each other of this their
exquisite, undreamed-of happiness. There had been a Before, there would
be an After, when they must stand on their defence against the world,
must resist a thousand importunities, heart-breaking prayers, to return
to the old, false, fruitless existence.

But just for these days they could be utterly alone in their paradise,
undisturbed even by the thoughts of others, since no one knew they were
there and together. Alas! they had been so only forty-eight hours, and
already a cold little serpent of anxiety had crept in among their roses.

Before entrusting herself to him, Mildred had told him that, in spite of
her apparent good health, she was occasionally subject to long
trance-like fits, resembling sleep; should this happen, it would be
useless to call an ordinary doctor, but that a Miss Timson, a well-known
scientific woman and a friend of hers, must be summoned at once. He had
taken Miss Timson's address and promised to do so; but Mildred had not
seemed to look upon the fit as more than a remote contingency. Perhaps
the excitement, the unconscious strain of the last few days had upset
her nerves; for this morning she had lain in what he had taken for a
natural sleep, until, finding her still sleeping profoundly at noon, he
had remembered her words and telegraphed to Miss Timson. An answer to
his telegram, saying that M