ly and
rarely the true. I am for romance, but upon the old, noble classic
line."

Dickson is scarcely listening. His eyes are on the distant lovers, and
he longs to say something which will gently and graciously express his
sympathy with his friend.

"I'm afraid," he begins hesitatingly, "I'm afraid you've had a bad
blow, Mr. Heritage. You're taking it awful well, and I honour you for
it."

The Poet flings back his head. "I am reconciled," he says. "After all
'tis better to have loved and lost, you know. It has been a great
experience and has shown me my own heart. I love her, I shall always
love her, but I realize that she was never meant for me. Thank God
I've been able to serve her--that is all a moth can ask of a star. I'm
a better man for it, Dogson. She will be a glorious memory, and Lord!
what poetry I shall write! I give her up joyfully, for she has found
her mate. 'Let us not to the marriage of true minds admit
impediments!' The thing's too perfect to grieve about.... Look! There
is romance incarnate."

He points to the figures now silhouetted against the further sea. "How
does it go, Dogson?" he cries. "'And on her lover's arm she
leant'--what next? You know the thing."

Dickson assists and Heritage declaims:

"And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old:
Across the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day
The happy princess followed him."

He repeats the last two lines twice and draws a deep breath. "How
right!" he cries. "How absolutely right! Lord! It's astonishing how
that old bird Tennyson got the goods!"

After that Dickson leaves him and wanders among the thickets on the
edge of the Huntingtower policies above the Laver glen. He feels
childishly happy, wonderfully young, and at the same time
supernaturally wise. Sometimes he thinks the past week has been a
dream, till he touches the sticking-plaster on his brow, and finds that
his left thigh is still a mass of bruises and that his right leg is
woefully stiff. With that the past becomes very real again, and he
sees the Garple Dean in that stormy afternoon, he wrestles again at
midnight in the dark House, he stands with quaking heart by the boats
to cut off the retreat. He sees it all, but without terror in the
recollection, rather with gusto and a modest prid