worth seeing from the
terrace. I spent an hour out there last night--ah, no; you are wrong
for once--I spent it alone, when the boating was over, and thought
of--how--to-night--we might be talking there together."

"Certainly I will come," said Jane; "and you must feel free to tell me
anything you wish, and promise to let me advise or help in any way I
can."

"I will tell you everything," said Garth very low, "and you shall
advise and help as ONLY you can."

* * * * *

Jane sat on her window-sill, enjoying the sunset and the exquisite
view, and glad of a quiet half-hour before she need think of summoning
her maid. Immediately below her ran the terrace, wide and gravelled,
bounded by a broad stone parapet, behind which was a drop of eight or
ten feet to the old-fashioned garden, with quaint box-bordered
flower-beds, winding walks, and stone fountains. Beyond, a stretch of
smooth lawn sloping down to the lake, which now lay, a silver mirror,
in the soft evening light. The stillness was so perfect; the sense of
peace, so all-pervading. Jane held a book on her knee, but she was not
reading. She was looking away to the distant woods beyond the lake;
then to the pearly sky above, flecked with rosy clouds and streaked
with gleams of gold; and a sense of content, and gladness, and
well-being, filled her.

Presently she heard a light step on the gravel below and leaned forward
to see to whom it belonged. Garth had come out of the smoking-room and
walked briskly to and fro, once or twice. Then he threw himself into a
wicker seat just beneath her window, and sat there, smoking
meditatively. The fragrance of his cigarette reached Jane, up among the
magnolia blossoms. "'Zenith,' Marcovitch," she said to herself, and
smiled. "Packed in jolly green boxes, twelve shillings a hundred! I
must remember in case I want to give him a Christmas present. By then
it will be difficult to find anything which has not already been
showered upon him."

Garth flung away the end of his cigarette, and commenced humming below
his breath; then gradually broke into words and sang softly, in his
sweet barytone:

"'It is not mine to sing the stately grace,
The great soul beaming in my lady's face.'"

The tones, though quiet, were so vibrant with passionate feeling, that
Jane felt herself an eavesdropper. She hastily picked a large magnolia
leaf and, leaning out, let it fall upon his head. Garth started, and
loo