“We were talking of roses,” said he. “It was out there I saw an English rose at Christmas. It had been sent out to a trooper who had been at Chelsea Barracks, by his sweetheart. Her brother was a gardener and the rose had evidently been grown under glass to send out to him.” “There is one English love-story with the scent of the rose breathing through it,” she cried. “‘My luv is like a redde redde rose’ is an English song--the rose you speak of was red, of course.” “Yes,” he replied after a little pause; “it was red--red when I found it--under his tunic.” She caught her breath with the sound of a little sob in her throat. “The pity of it! the pity of it! she had sent it out for his grave.” She put her face once again down to the crimson petals which remained in her hands; and when she let them drop to the grass he saw that two of them were clinging together. “That was the first time I saw an English rose,” he said, “and I have never seen one since without thinking of what it symbolised. The love that is stronger than death.” “Yes,” she said, “yes.” And, curiously enough, it seemed that that word was the most complete commentary upon the little story that he had told to her in so few sentences. It also seemed to suggest something of the nature of a comment upon his last remark--a confidential comment. He nodded, repeating the word, but with a longer interval between the repetition of it: “Yes--yes.” For a few moments they stood together in silence. The sound of voices--a faint murmur--came from the open window of the drawing-room. The note of a blackbird from Kensington Gardens thrilled through the air. As if under the influence of the one impulse, Josephine and her companion walked once more down the garden--slowly--musingly--silently. It was not until they had made a complete circuit of the rose beds and had returned to the parterre where they had been standing, that he said: “Yes--yes: I know that I shall never see a rose again without thinking that--that--I have been among the roses with you.” He noticed that she gave a little start--was it a shudder?--and then glanced quickly towards him. She made a motion with one of her hands--she drew a sudden breath and said quickly in a low tone: “Mr. Winwood--I think--that is--oh, let us go into the house. I never wish to walk in a garden of roses again.” He knew that whatever she had meant to say when she drew that long breath, she had not said it: she had broken down and uttered something quite different from what had been on her mind--on her lips. Already she was half way to the terrace steps, and she had run up them and was within the room before he moved. She was greeting some one in the room. How loud her laugh was! And yet he had thought half an hour before that he had never heard so low a laugh as hers!--the laughter of a brook among mossy stones. But a spate had taken place. He went down once more to the end of the garden alone thinking his thoughts.