‘It is you?’ she said, almost in a whisper. ‘Yes, it is I.’ They stood facing each other in unbroken silence for a full minute, and then she asked, still in that breathless whisper: ‘Why did you come?’ ‘Because I could not keep away.’ She turned and began slowly to pace down the path between the roses. Waves of perfume were wafted to their nostrils from the syringa blossom. Yes, yonder stood the bush just as he had pictured to himself. The remembrance suddenly flashed across Richard as he walked beside her that these shrubs were sometimes called ‘Mock Orange Trees.’ _Mock Orange Trees_! _Mock Orange Blossom_!—he must not pursue that thought further. ‘I kept away for four days,’ he said suddenly. ‘I tried to keep away to-day.’ After a long pause she faltered: ‘I was wondering why you did not come.’ He made no answer, and they walked in silence till the end of the path was reached, and then she said, still falteringly: ‘I don’t think you ought to have come now.’ ‘I know I ought not!’ They turned and began to retrace their steps, but when about mid-way up the garden she came to a standstill and looked him full in the face. ‘Go now,’ she said. ‘Go! You must not stay here any longer.’ Even in the dim light he could see that she was pale and that her figure wavered; but he gazed at her as though without realising the sense of her words. ‘Will you not leave me,’ she entreated, ‘when I ask you?’ He stood looking at her stupidly for a moment or two longer; then the meaning of her request seemed to reach his understanding. ‘I will go,’ he said hoarsely, ‘if you will give me those flowers in your hand.’ ‘How foolish you are!’ she cried. ‘There, yes, take them, and for Heaven’s sake go!’ She thrust them towards him, and he took them from her hand—a cluster of roses, moist and sweet. Instead of fulfilling his promise, however, he made a step closer to her. ‘Will you put them in my coat?’ he asked. His eyes in his haggard face seemed to burn. ‘No,’ said Rosalie, drawing back. The movement and the icy tone that accompanied it recalled him to himself. He, too, drew back, hesitated, and then, throwing the flowers on the ground with a passionate gesture, departed. Back again through the gate, across the yard, under the lea of the hedge, over the downs. Here was home; there was the warm light of the fire by which his uncle sat. Now the door was open, and he stood once more in his presence; now, he, Richard, would be forced to look him in the face. For a moment he stood with the door-handle in his hand, and then, as the old man turned to smile inquiringly upon him, he suddenly wheeled and fled. ‘I can’t,’ he cried, as he mounted the stairs. ‘I can’t!’ Isaac stared at the closed door for some moments as though expecting it to open again, then, slowly turning back to the fire, listened. In the room overhead hasty steps were walking up and down.