She had lived her day. The long vista of to-morrow and to-morrow opened before her joyless gaze, and she could look down the tranquil path it was her fate to tread, a wife beloved and honoured, a sister fondly loved, a daughter reconciled with her father, mistress of a fine old house, full of quaint and pleasant associations, established for life in the heart of rural scenes which her soul loved. Surely it was not a destiny to be contemplated with such profound sadness as shadowed her face to-night, while she leant listlessly on her oars and drifted down the full dark river. All was very quiet below the bridge when she landed at the boat-builder’s yard, and left her craft in charge of that amphibious and more than half-intoxicated hanger-on who is generally to be found waiting on fortune at every landing-stage. The walk to the church was dark and shadowy; lights twinkling in the low cottage windows; glimpses of home-life dimly seen through open doors. Daphne walked quickly to the avenue of limes, that green odorous aisle that leads to the porch. There had been evening service, and the lights were still burning here and there, and the heavy old door stood ajar. Daphne pushed it gently open, and crept into the church, past the stately monuments of mediæval Cloptons, whose marble effigies reposed in solemn pomp upon sculptured tombs, rich in armorial emblazonment. In the faint light and mysterious shadow the stony figures looked like real sleepers, waiting for the last dread summons. Daphne stole past them with noiseless footfall, and crept along the aisle to the lovely old chancel, where, just within the altar-rails, William Shakespeare takes his last earthly rest. The sexton came out of the vestry to see whose footfall it was that fell so lightly on that everlasting flint. Daphne was standing by the altar-rail in a reverie, looking up at the calm sculptured face, so serene in its contentment with a life which, in the vast range and dominion of a mind that was in itself a kingdom, had held all things worth having. These are the full and rounded lives, complete and perfect in themselves, the calm and placid lives of contemplative men, for whom the gates of the spiritual universe stand ever open, who are in no wise dependent upon the joys, and gains, and triumphs of this work-a-day world. ‘Were you always happy, my calm-faced Shakespeare?’ wondered Daphne. ‘Could you have sounded all the deeps of sorrow without having yourself suffered? I think not. Yet there seems hardly any room in your life for great sorrow, except perhaps in the loss of that child who died young. Was Ann Hathaway your only love, I wonder—you who wrote so sweetly of sorrowful hopeless love—or was there another, another whom we know as Juliet, and Imogen, and Cordelia: another from whom you always lived far apart, yet whom you always loved?’ ‘I beg your pardon, miss,’ said the sexton; ‘I’m going to lock up the church.’