One day toward the end of the month of June, Sir Ronald went out into the Holme Woods. The morning was fine, the sun shining, and the air filled with the fragrance of wild flowers. Holme Woods had never looked so beautiful. The trees wore their richest foliage, great sheets of blue hyacinths spread out far and wide, bright-winged butterflies hovered over them, bees hummed for very joy at the rich feast spread before them. Sir Ronald had not noticed the path he was taking. The faint, wild perfume of the harebells was grateful to him. Body, mind, heart and soul, he was tired, and he had come to the woods, loving the solitude he found there. You know, reader, what face was before him. Imagine his surprise when his thoughts suddenly seemed embodied; for there, seated on a bank, with the pretty harebells nodding around her, was Lady Hermione Lorriston. He would have turned and fled, but the manhood within him rebelled against flight. He stood looking helplessly at her, too bewildered for words. When he was capable of coherent thought he saw how white her face grew. She rose and stood before him, like some bright, strange, frightened bird, dreading to stay, yet dreading to go. And then the past months, with their untold agony, faded from him. He remembered nothing save that it was summer time and he loved her--save that for him it was heaven where she was, and a dreary blank where she was not. “Hermione!” he cried, going up to her, and holding out his hand, all his proud resolves, all his _hauteur_, all his indignant anger melted into thin air. She gave him no hand in return. The pale, sweet face was graver than he had ever seen it before. “I did not think to see you here, Sir Ronald,” she said, coldly. He had only seen her once since the night when he had kissed her among the flowers, and everything save the memory of that night seemed to die from him. “How cruel you have been to me, Hermione; how you lured me on to my ruin and my doom; how false you are despite the fairness of that most fair face! If you had stabbed me, and trampled my dead body under foot, you would have been less cruel. What did I ever do, Hermione, that I deserved so cruel a fate?” She looked up at him proudly. “You have no right to speak to me,” she said. “You are married, and the kindness or cruelty of no other woman but your wife should concern you. Then I have not been cruel to you, Ronald, and you know it.” There was something inexpressibly sad and pitiful in the whole scene. These two, who loved each other so dearly, who in the whole world cared only for each other, parted more completely than if death had separated them. “I know that you did me the greatest wrong woman could do to man,” he replied. “What was it?” she asked, the proud flush deepening on her face.