a
mosaic palace, rent with earthquakes; or like a Dutch tulip garden blown
to the stars with dynamite.

"It's like Kew Gardens on Beachy Head," said Ethel.

"It is our secret," answered he, "the secret of the volcano; that is
also the secret of the revolution--that a thing can be violent and yet
fruitful."

"You are rather violent yourself," and she smiled at him.

"And yet rather fruitless," he admitted; "if I die tonight I die
unmarried and a fool."

"It is not my fault if you have come," she said after a difficult
silence.

"It is never your fault," answered Muscari; "it was not your fault that
Troy fell."

As they spoke they came under overwhelming cliffs that spread almost
like wings above a corner of peculiar peril. Shocked by the big shadow
on the narrow ledge, the horses stirred doubtfully. The driver leapt to
the earth to hold their heads, and they became ungovernable. One horse
reared up to his full height--the titanic and terrifying height of
a horse when he becomes a biped. It was just enough to alter the
equilibrium; the whole coach heeled over like a ship and crashed through
the fringe of bushes over the cliff. Muscari threw an arm round Ethel,
who clung to him, and shouted aloud. It was for such moments that he
lived.

At the moment when the gorgeous mountain walls went round the poet's
head like a purple windmill a thing happened which was superficially
even more startling. The elderly and lethargic banker sprang erect in
the coach and leapt over the precipice before the tilted vehicle could
take him there. In the first flash it looked as wild as suicide; but in
the second it was as sensible as a safe investment. The Yorkshireman had
evidently more promptitude, as well as more sagacity, than Muscari had
given him credit for; for he landed in a lap of land which might
have been specially padded with turf and clover to receive him. As
it happened, indeed, the whole company were equally lucky, if less
dignified in their form of ejection. Immediately under this abrupt turn
of the road was a grassy and flowery hollow like a sunken meadow; a
sort of green velvet pocket in the long, green, trailing garments of
the hills. Into this they were all tipped or tumbled with little damage,
save that their smallest baggage and even the contents of their pockets
were scattered in the grass around them. The wrecked coach still hung
above, entangled in the tough hedge, and the horses plunged painfully
down the