h the
eye was immediately attracted with something of a shock and held by a
curious fascination. The face was smiling, a smile of great peace, and
also of a strange cunning. One other characteristic it had: the woman
looked as though at any moment she would suddenly open her eyes, and if
you turned away from her and looked again, she seemed to be smiling to
herself because she had opened them that moment behind your back, and
just closed them again in time.

It was a face that never changed and yet was always changing.

She looked doubly strange in the evening light, and her smile softened
and deepened as the shadows gathered in the room.

Antony came and stood in front of her.

"Silencieux," he whispered, "I love you, Silencieux. Smiling Silence, I
love you. All day long on the moors your smile has stolen like a
moonbeam by my side--"

As he spoke, from far down the wood came the gentle sound of a woman's
voice calling "Antony," and coming nearer as it called.

With a shade of impatience, Antony bent nearer to the image and kissed
it.

"Good-bye, Silencieux," he whispered, "Good-bye, until the rising of the
moon."

Then he passed out on to the little staircase that led down into the
wood, and called back to the approaching voice: "I am coming,
Beatrice,"--'Beatrice' being the name of his wife.

As he called, a shaft of late sunlight suddenly irradiated the tall
slim form of a woman coming up the wood. She wore no hat, and the sun
made a misty glory of her pale gold hair. She seemed a fairy romantic
thing thus gliding in her yellow silk gown through the darkening pines.
And her face was the face of the image, feature for feature. There was
on it too the same light, the same smile.

"Antony," she called, as they drew nearer to each other, "where in the
wide world have you been? Dinner has been waiting for half-an-hour."

"Dinner!" he said, laughing, and kissing her kindly. "Fancy! the High
Muses have made me half-an-hour late for dinner. Beauty has made me
forget my dinner. Disgraceful!"

"I don't mind your forgetting dinner, Antony--but you might have
remembered me."

"Do you think I could remember Beauty and forget you? Yes! you _are_
beautiful to-night, Silen--Beatrice. You look like a lady one meets
walking by a haunted well in some old Arthurian tale."

"Hush!" said Beatrice, "listen to the night-jar. He is worth a hundred
nightingales."

"Yes; what a passion is that!" said Antony, "so sincere, a