the seat? or
was it Chiltern's voice? She would indeed love and cherish it. And was it
true that she belonged there, securely infolded within those peaceful
walls? How marvellously well was Thalia playing her comedy! Which was the
real, and which the false? What of true value, what of peace and security
was contained in her present existence? She had missed the meaning of
things, and suddenly it was held up before her, in a garden.

A later hour found them in Honora's runabout wandering northward along
quiet country roads on the eastern side of the island. Chiltern, who was
driving, seemed to take no thought of their direction, until at last,
with an exclamation, he stopped the horse; and Honora beheld an abandoned
mansion of a bygone age sheltered by ancient trees, with wide lands
beside it sloping to the water.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Beaulieu," he replied. "It was built in the seventeenth century, I
believe, and must have been a fascinating place in colonial days." He
drove in between the fences and tied the horse, and came around by the
side of the runabout. "Won't you get out and look at it?"

She hesitated, and their eyes met as he held out his hand, but she
avoided it and leaped quickly to the ground neither spoke as they walked
around the deserted house and gazed at the quaint facade, broken by a
crumbling, shaded balcony let in above the entrance door. No sound broke
the stillness of the summer's day--a pregnant stillness. The air was
heavy with perfumes, and the leaves formed a tracery against the
marvellous blue of the sky. Mystery brooded in the place. Here, in this
remote paradise now in ruins, people had dwelt and loved. Thought ended
there; and feeling, which is unformed thought, began. Again she glanced
at him, and again their eyes met, and hers faltered. They turned, as with
one consent, down the path toward the distant water. Paradise overgrown!
Could it be reconstructed, redeemed?

In former days the ground they trod had been a pleasance the width of the
house, bordered, doubtless, by the forest. Trees grew out of the flower
beds now, and underbrush choked the paths. The box itself, that once
primly lined the alleys, was gnarled and shapeless. Labyrinth had
replaced order, nature had reaped her vengeance. At length, in the
deepening shade, they came, at what had been the edge of the old terrace,
to the daintiest of summer-houses, crumbling too, the shutters off their
hinges, the floor-boards