e and metal gently clashed.

Presently a song came up to him, through the garden below, from
the house. The notes seemed to keep time to the hand of the
sickle-sharpener. He had heard it before, but only in snatches. Now it
seemed to pierce his senses and to flood his nerves with feeling.

The air was sensuous, insinuating, ardent. The words were full of summer
and of that dramatic indolence of passion which saved the incident at
Magon Farcinelle's from being as vulgar as it was treacherous. The voice
was Christine's, on her wedding day.

"Oh, hark how the wind goes, the wind goes
(And dark goes the stream by the mill!)
Oh, see where the storm blows, the storm blows
(There's a rider comes over the hill!)

"He went with the sunshine one morning
(Oh, loud was the bugle and drum!)
My soldier, he gave me no warning
(Oh, would that my lover might come!)

"My kisses, my kisses are waiting
(Oh, the rider comes over the hill!)
In summer the birds should be mating
(Oh, the harvest goes down to the mill!)

"Oh, the rider, the rider he stayeth
(Oh, joy that my lover hath come!)
We will journey together he sayeth
(No more with the bugle and drum!)"

He caught sight of Christine for a moment as she passed through the
garden towards the stable. Her gown was of white stuff, with little
spots of red in it, and a narrow red ribbon was shot through the collar.
Her hat was a pretty white straw, with red artificial flowers upon it.
She wore at her throat a medallion brooch: one of the two heirlooms
of the Lavilette family. It had belonged to the great-grandmother of
Monsieur Louis Lavilette, and was the one security that this ambitious
family did not spring up, like a mushroom, in one night. It had always
touched Christine's imagination as a child. Some native instinct in, her
made her prize it beyond everything else. She used to make up wonderful
stories about it, and tell them to Sophie, who merely wondered, and
was not sure but that Christine was wicked; for were not these little
romances little lies? Sophie's imagination was limited. As the years
went on Christine finally got possession of the medallion, and held
it against all opposition. Somehow, with it on this morning, she felt
diminish the social distance between herself and Ferrol.

Ferrol himself thought nothing of social distance. Men, as a rul