So the summer slipped away, all too fleetly--to me, as I look back after these weary years, in a day. But nevertheless much happened: not much that need be written down in bald and pitiless prose, but much to me who counted and treasured every moment that held my darling near me. So the Loves through that golden season wound us round with their invisible chains and hovered smiling and waiting. So we drifted week after week upon the river, each time nearer and nearer to the harbour of confession. The end was surely coming, and at last it came. It was a gorgeous August evening. A week before she had told me that Saturday would be a holiday for her, and had, when pressed, admitted a design of spending it upon the river. Need it be confessed that Saturday saw me also in my boat, expectant? And when she came and feigned pretty astonishment at meeting me, and scepticism as to my doing any work throughout the week, need I say the explanation took time and seemed to me best delivered in a boat? At any rate, so it was; and somehow, the explanation took such a vast amount of time, that the sun was already plunging down the western slope of heaven when we stepped ashore almost on the very spot where first I had heard her voice. As the first film of evening came creeping over earth, there fell a hush between us. A blackbird--the same, I verily believe--took the opportunity to welcome us. His note was no longer full and unstudied as in May. The summer was nearly over, and with it his voice was failing; but he did his best, and something in the hospitality of his song prompted me to break the silence. "This is the very spot on which we met for the first time--do you remember?" "Of course I remember," was the simple answer. "You do?" I foolishly burned to hear the assurance again. "Of course--it was such a lovely day." "A blessed day," I answered, "the most blessed of my life." There was a long pause here, and even the blackbird could hardly fill it up. "Do you regret it?" (Why does man on these occasions ask such a heap of questions?) "Why should I?" (Why does woman invariably answer his query with another?) "I hope there is no reason," I answered, "and yet--oh, can you not see of what that day was the beginning? Can you not see whither these last four months have carried me?" The sun struck slanting on the water and ran in tapering lustre to our feet. The gilded ripple slipped and murmured below us; the bronzed leaves overhead bent carefully to veil her answer. The bird within the covert uttered an anxious note. "They have carried you, it seems," she answered, with eyes gently lowered, "back to the same place." "They have carried me," I echoed, "from spring to summer. If they have brought me back to this spot, it is because the place and I have changed--Claire!"