uchess
appeared in a marvellous costume, which made her look quite young and
slim, and proposed a walk in the park. They went along briskly, side by
side, keeping to the bye-paths to avoid the noise of the heavy rakes.
Three times a day the gardeners struggled against the accumulation of
the falling leaves. But in vain; in an hour the walks were again covered
by the same Oriental carpet, richly coloured with purple, green, and
bronze; and their feet rustled in it as they walked under the soft level
rays of the sun. The Duchess spoke of the husband who had brought so
much sorrow into her youth; she was anxious to make Paul feel that her
mourning was entirely conventional and did not affect her feelings. Paul
understood her object, and smiled coldly, determined to carry out his
plan.

At the lower end of the park they sat down, near a little building
hidden behind maples and privet, where the fishing nets and oars of the
boats were kept. From their seat they looked across the sloping lawns
and the plantations and shrubberies showing patches of gold. The castle,
seen in the background, with its long array of closed windows and
deserted terraces, lifting its towers and turrets proudly to the sky,
seemed withdrawn, as it were, into the past, and grander than ever.

'I am sorry to leave all that,' said Paul, with a sigh. She looked at
him in amazement with storm in her knitted brows. Go away? Did he mean
to go away? Why?

'No help. Such is life.'

'Are we to part? And what is to become of me?--and the journey we were
to make together?'

'I could not interrupt you----' he said. But how could a poor artist
like him afford himself a journey to Palestine? It was an impossible
dream, like Vedrine's dahabeeah ending in a punt on the Loire.

She shrugged her aristocratic shoulders, and said, 'Why, Paul, what
nonsense! You know that all I have is yours.'

'Mine? By what right?'

It was out! But she did not see yet what he was driving at. Fearing that
he had gone too far, he added, 'I mean, what right, in the prejudiced
view of society, shall I have to travel with you?'

'Well then, we will stay at Mousseaux.'

He made her a little mocking bow as he said, 'Your architect has
finished his work on the castle.'

'Oh, we will find him something to do, if I have to set fire to it
to-night!'

She laughed her open-hearted tender laugh, leant against him, and taking
his hands pressed them against her cheeks--fond trifling this