Daphne was very tired of the Avon. Never had the days of her life seemed longer or drearier than they seemed to her just now, when her faithful slave Edgar was no longer at hand to minister to her caprices. A strange stillness seemed to have fallen upon South Hill. Sir Vernon was laid up with that suppressed gout which Daphne fancied was only another name for unsuppressed ill-temper, so closely did the two complaints seem allied. At such times Madoline was more than ever necessary to his well-being. She sat with him in the library; she read to him; she wrote his letters; and was in all things verily his right hand. The most pure and perfect filial love sweetened an office which would have seemed hard to an ungrateful or cold-hearted daughter. Yet in the close retirement of the stern-looking businesslike chamber, with its prim bookshelves and standard literature—not a book which every decently-read student does not know from cover to cover—she could but remember the bright summer days that were done; the aimless wanderings in meadow and wood; the drives to Goring Abbey; the tea-drinkings in the cloisters or in the gardens; the happy season which was gone. The knowledge that this one happy summer, the first she and Gerald had ever spent together as engaged lovers, was ended and over, made her feel as if some part of her own youth had gone with it—something which could never come again. It had been such an utterly happy period; such peerless weather; such a fair gladsome earth, teeming with all good things—even the farmers ceasing to grumble, and owning that, for once in a way, there was hope of a prosperous harvest. And now it was over; the corn was reaped, and sportsmen were tramping over the stubble; the plough-horses were creeping slowly across the hill; the sun was beginning to decline soon after five-o’clock tea; breathings of approaching winter sharpened the sweet morning breezes; autumnal mists veiled the meadows at eventide. Gerald Goring had gone to Scotland to shoot grouse. It seemed to Daphne, prowling about gardens and meadows with Goldie in a purposeless manner that was the essence of idleness, as if the summer had gone in a breath. Yesterday she was here, that glorious, radiant, disembodied goddess we call Summer—yesterday she was here, and all the lanes were sweetened with lime-blossoms, and the roses were being wasted with prodigal profusion, and the river ran liquid gold; and to sit on a sunny bank was to be steeped in warm delight. To-day there were only stiff-looking dahlias, and variegated foliage, and mouse-coloured plants, and house-leek borders, in the gardens where the roses had been; and to sit on a grassy bank was to shiver or to sneeze. The river had a dismal look. There had been heavy rains within the last few days, and the willowy banks were hidden under dull mud-coloured water. There was no more pleasure in boating.