'She said very little. She was very nice to me. She could see that I was a good woman....' 'But that made no difference so far as she was concerned. You took her lover away from her.' 'She knew that I hadn't done anything wrong, that we were merely friends.' The conversation paused a moment, then Morton said: 'It seems to have been a mysterious kind of death. What did he die of?' 'Ah, no one ever knew. The doctors could make nothing of his case. He had been complaining a long time. They spoke of overwork, but--' 'But, what?' 'I believe he died of slow poisoning.' 'Slow poisoning! Who could have poisoned him?' 'Ellen Gibbs.' 'What an awful thing to say.... I suppose you have some reason for suspecting her?' 'His death was very mysterious. The doctors could not account for it. There ought to have been a _post-mortem_ examination.' Feeling that this was not sufficient reason, and remembering suddenly that Ralph held socialistic theories and was a member of a sect of socialists, she said: 'Ralph was a member of a secret society.... He was an anarchist--no one suspected it, but he told me everything, and it was I who persuaded him to leave the Brotherhood.' 'I do not see what that has to do with his death by slow poisoning.' 'Those who retire from these societies usually die.' 'But why Ellen Gibbs?' 'She was a member of the same society, it was she who got him to join. When he resigned it was her duty to--' 'Kill him! What a terrible story. I wonder if you're right.' 'I know I am right.' At the end of a long silence, Morton said: 'I wonder if you like me as much as you liked Ralph.' 'It is very different. He was very good to me.' 'And do you think that I shall not be good to you?' 'Yes, I think you will,' she said looking up and taking the hand which pressed against her waist. 'You say he was a very clever artist. Do you like his work better than mine?' 'It was as different as you yourselves are.' 'I wonder if I should like it?' 'He would have liked that,' and she pointed with her parasol towards an oak glade, golden hearted and hushed. 'A sort of Diaz, then?' 'No, not the least like that. No, it wasn't the Rousseau palette.' 'That's a regular Diaz motive. It would be difficult to treat it differently.' The carriage rolled through a tender summer twilight, through a whispering forest. XVII. At the end of September the green was duskier, yellow had begun to appear; and the crisped leaf falling through the still air stirred the heart like a memory. The skies which rose above the dying forest had acquired gentler tints, a wistfulness had come into the blue which was in keeping with the fall of the leaf. There was a scent of moisture in the underwoods, rills had begun to babble; on the hazel rods leaves fluttered pathetically, the branches of the plane trees hung out like plumes, their drooping leaves making wonderful patterns.