yet able to enjoy the
lovely and loving beneficence of all beautiful and natural things. The
scent of the wild thyme growing in prolific patches at his feet,--the
more pungent odour of the tall daisies which were of a hardy,
free-flowering kind,--the "strong sea-daisies that feast on the
sun,"--and the indescribable salty perfume that swept upwards on the
faint wind from the unseen ocean, just now hidden by projecting shelves
of broken ground fringed with trees,--all combined together to refresh
the air and to make the mere act of breathing a delight. After about
twenty minutes' walking Helmsley's step grew easier and more
springy,--almost he felt young,--almost he pictured himself living for
another ten years in health and active mental power. The lassitude and
_ennui_ inseparable from a life spent for the most part in the business
centres of London, had rolled away like a noxious mist from his mind,
and he was well-nigh ready to "begin life again," as he told himself,
with a smile at his own folly.

"No wonder that the old-world philosophers and scientists sought for the
_elixir vitae_!" he thought. "No wonder they felt that the usual tenure
is too short for all that a man might accomplish, did he live well and
wisely enough to do justice to all the powers with which nature has
endowed him. I am myself inclined to think that the 'Tree of Life'
exists,--perhaps its leaves are the 'leaves of the Daura,' for which
that excellent fellow Matt Peke is looking. Or it may be the 'Secta
Croa'!"

He smiled,--and having arrived at the end of the path which he had
followed from the door of the "Trusty Man," he saw before him a
descending bank, which sloped into the highroad, a wide track white
with thick dust stretching straight away for about a mile and then
dipping round a broad curve of land, overarched with trees. He sat down
for a few minutes on the warm grass, giving himself up to the idle
pleasure of watching the birds skimming through the clear blue sky,--the
bees bouncing in and out of the buttercups,--the varicoloured
butterflies floating like blown flower-petals on the breeze,--and he
heard a distant bell striking the half-hour after eleven. He had noted
the time when leaving the "Trusty Man," otherwise he would not have
known it so exactly, having left his watch locked up at home in his
private desk with other personal trinkets which would have been
superfluous and troublesome to him on his self-imposed journey. Whe