atisfied, and blame her.

She told herself that, had he lacked ambition, she could not have loved
him, and did not stop to reflect upon the completeness of her
satisfaction with the Viking. He seemed, indeed, in these weeks, one whom
the sea has marked for its own, and her delight in watching him as he
moved about the boat never palled. His nose reminded her of the prow of a
ship of war, and his deep-set eyes were continually searching the horizon
for an enemy. Such were her fancies. In the early morning when he donned
his sleeveless bathing suit, she could never resist the temptation to
follow him on deck to see him plunge into the cold ocean: it gave her a
delightful little shiver--and he was made like one of the gods of
Valhalla.

She had discovered, too, in these intimate days, that he had the
Northman's temperament; she both loved and dreaded his moods. And
sometimes, when the yacht glided over smoother seas, it was his pleasure
to read to her, even poetry and the great epics. That he should be fond
of the cruel Scotch ballads she was not surprised; but his familiarity
with the book of Job, and his love for it, astonished her. It was a
singular library that he had put on board the 'Adhemar'.

One evening when the sails flapped idly and the blocks rattled, when they
had been watching in silence the flaming orange of the sunset above the
amethystine Camden hills, he spoke the words for which she had been
waiting.

"Honora, what do you say to going back to Grenoble?"

She succeeded in smiling at him.

"Whenever you like, Hugh," she said.

So the bowsprit of the 'Adhemar' was turned homewards; and with every
league of water they left behind them his excitement and impatience
seemed to grow.

"I can't wait to show it to you, Honora--to see you in it," he exclaimed.
"I have so long pictured you there, and our life as it will be."

CHAPTER XII

THE ENTRANCE INTO EDEN

They had travelled through the night, and in the early morning left the
express at a junction. Honora sat in the straight-backed seat of the
smaller train with parted lips and beating heart, gazing now and again at
the pearly mists rising from the little river valley they were climbing.
Chiltern was like a schoolboy.

"We'll soon be there," he cried, but it was nearly nine o'clock when they
reached the Gothic station that marked the end of the line. It was a
Chiltern line, he told her, and she was already within the feudal domain.
Time