urite, then the pink, then the honeysuckle, then the jasmine. The
rose stood only fifth in the scale. She looked at the lilies, but did
not smell them.

Gilliatt figured her in his imagination from this choice of odours. With
each perfume he associated some perfection.

The very idea of speaking to Deruchette would have made his hair stand
on end. A poor old rag-picker, whose wandering brought her, from time to
time, into the little road leading under the inclosure of the Bravees,
had occasionally remarked Gilliatt's assiduity beside the wall, and his
devotion for this retired spot. Did she connect the presence of a man
before this wall with the possibility of a woman behind it? Did she
perceive that vague, invisible thread? Was she, in her decrepit
mendicancy, still youthful enough to remember something of the old
happier days? And could she, in this dark night and winter of her
wretched life, still recognise the dawn? We know not: but it appears
that, on one occasion, passing near Gilliatt at his post, she brought to
bear upon him something as like a smile as she was still capable of, and
muttered between her teeth, "It is getting warmer."

Gilliatt heard the words, and was struck by them. "It warms one," he
muttered, with an inward note of interrogation. "It is getting warmer."
What did the old woman mean?

He repeated the phrase mechanically all day, but he could not guess its
meaning.

III

THE AIR "BONNIE DUNDEE" FINDS AN ECHO ON THE HILL

It was in a spot behind the enclosure of the garden of the Bravees, at
an angle of the wall, half concealed with holly and ivy, and covered
with nettles, wild mallow, and large white mullen growing between the
blocks of stone, that he passed the greater part of that summer. He
watched there, lost in deep thought. The lizards grew accustomed to his
presence, and basked in the sun among the same stones. The summer was
bright and full of dreamy indolence: overhead the light clouds came and
went. Gilliatt sat upon the grass. The air was full of the songs of
birds. He held his two hands up to his forehead, sometimes trying to
recollect himself: "Why should she write my name in the snow?" From a
distance the sea breeze came up in gentle breaths, at intervals the horn
of the quarrymen sounded abruptly, warning the passers-by to take
shelter, as they shattered some mass with gunpowder. The Port of St.
Sampson was not visible from this place, but he could see the tips of