t's such a glory to be fond like that."

He stopped.

"We won't talk about it," he said--"or, rather, I can't talk about it,
if you don't understand."

"But she had refused you," said the sensible Francis.

"That makes no difference. She shines through everything, through the
infernal awfulness of these days, through my father's anger, and my
mother's illness, whatever it proves to be--I think about them really
with all my might, and at the end I find I've been thinking about
Sylvia. Everything is she--the woods, the tide--oh, I can't explain."

They had walked across the marshy land at the edge of the estuary, and
now in front of them was the steep and direct path up to the house,
and the longer way through the woods. At this point the estuary made
a sudden turn to the left, sweeping directly seawards, and round the
corner, immediately in front of them was the long reach of deep water
up which, even when the tide was at its lowest, an ocean-going steamer
could penetrate if it knew the windings of the channel. To-day, in the
windless, cold calm of mid-winter, though the sun was brilliant in a
blue sky overhead, an opaque mist, thick as cotton-wool, lay over the
surface of the water, and, taking the winding road through the woods,
which, following the estuary, turned the point, they presently found
themselves, as they mounted, quite clear of the mist that lay below them
on the river. Their steps were noiseless on the mossy path, and almost
immediately after they had turned the corner, as Francis paused to light
a cigarette, they heard from just below them the creaking of oars in
their rowlocks. It caught the ears of them both, and without conscious
curiosity they listened. On the moment the sound of rowing ceased, and
from the dense mist just below them there came a sound which was quite
unmistakable, namely, the "plop" of something heavy dropped into the
water. That sound, by some remote form of association, suddenly recalled
to Michael's mind certain questions Aunt Barbara had asked him about the
Emperor's stay at Ashbridge, and his own recollection of his having gone
up and down the river in a launch. There was something further, which he
did not immediately recollect. Yes, it was the request that if when he
was here at Christmas he found strangers hanging about the deep-water
reach, of which the chart was known only to the Admiralty, he should
let her know. Here at this moment they were overlooking the mist-swath