ty," he said.

"With more than you are aware of," she murmured, not meaning to say it.

She stood up impulsively, her fresh face turned to the distant house,
her rounded young figure poised in relief against the sky.

"Inherited or not, idleness, procrastination, are my besetting sins.
Can't you suggest the remedy, Mr. Siward?"

"But they are only the thieves of Time; and we kill the poor old
gentleman."

"Leagued assassins," she repeated pensively.

Her gown had caught on the cliff briers; he knelt to release it, she
looking down, noting an ugly tear in the fabric.

"Payment for my iniquities--the first instalment," she said, still
looking down over his shoulder and watching his efforts to release her.
"Thank you, Mr. Siward. I think we ought to start, don't you?"

He straightened up, smiling, awaiting her further pleasure. Her pleasure
being capricious, she seated herself again, saying: "What I meant to say
was this: evils that spring from heredity are no excuse for misconduct
in people of our sort. Environment, not heredity, counts. And it's our
business, who have every chance in the world, to make good!"

He looked down, amused at the piquant incongruity of voice and
vernacular.

"What time is it?" she asked irrelevantly.

He glanced at his watch. She turned her eyes toward the level sun,
conscious, and a little conscience-stricken that it was too late for her
to drive to Black Fells Crossing--unless she started at once.

The sun hung low over the pines; all the scrubby foreland ran molten
gold in every tufted furrow; flock after flock of twittering little
birds whirled into the briers and out again, scattering inland into
undulating flight.

The zenith turned shell pink; through clotted shoals of clouds spread
spaces of palest green like calm lakes in the sky.

It grew stiller; the wind went down with the sun.

Doubtless he had forgotten to tell her the time; she had almost
forgotten that she had asked him. With the silence of sunset a languor,
the indolence of content, crept over her; she saw him close his watch
with the absent-minded air which she already associated with him, and
she let the question go from sheer disinclination for the effort of
repetition--let the projected drive go--acquiescent, content that
matters shape themselves without any interference from her. The sense of
ease, of physical well-being invaded her with an agreeable relaxation as
though tension somewhere had slackened.