She felt her knees weak beneath her and she moved on slowly, away from the sun, to a lonely little wood that bordered the hill-top. In her sudden weakness she climbed the paling that enclosed it with some difficulty, wondering if she were most inconveniently going to faint, and walking blindly along a narrow path, in the sudden cool and darkness, she dropped down on the moss at the first turning of the way. Here, at last, was beauty. The light, among the fanlike branches, looked like sea-water streaked with gold; the tall boles of the beeches were like the pillars of a temple sunken in the sea. Helen lay back, folded her arms behind her head, and stared up at the chinks of far brightness in the green roof overhead. It was like being drowned, deep beneath the surface of things. If only she could be at peace, like a drowned thing. Lying there, she longed to die, to dissolve away into the moss, the earth, the cool, green air. And feeling this, in the sudden beauty, tears, for the first time, came to her eyes. She turned over on her face, burying it in her arms and muttering in childish language, 'I'm sick of it; sick to death of it.' As she spoke she was aware that some one was near her. A sudden footfall, a sudden pause, followed her words. She lifted her head, then she sat up. The tears had flowed and her cheeks were wet with them, but of that she was not conscious, so great was her surprise at finding Franklin Winslow Kane standing before her on the mossy path. Mr. Kane carried his straw hat in his hand. He was very warm, his hair was untidy on his moist brow, his boots were white with dust, his trousers were turned up from them and displayed an inch or so of thin ankle encased in oatmeal-coloured socks. His tie--Helen noted the one salient detail among the many dull ones that made up a whole so incongruous with the magic scene--was of a peculiarly harsh and ugly shade of blue. He had only just climbed over a low wall near by and that was why he had come upon her so inaudibly and had, so inadvertently, been a witness of her grief. He did not, however, show embarrassment, but looked at her with the hesitant yet sympathetic attentiveness of a vagrant dog. Helen sat on the moss, her feet extended before her, and she returned his look from her tearful eyes, making no attempt to soften the oddity of the situation. She found, indeed, a gloomy amusement in it, and was aware of wondering what Mr. Kane, who made so much of everything, would make of their mutual predicament. 'Have you been having a long walk, too?' she asked. He looked at her, smiling now a little, as if he wagged a responsive tail; but he was not an ingratiating dog, only a friendly and a troubled one. 'Yes, I have,' he said. 'We have got rather a long way off, Miss Buchanan.' 'That's a comfort sometimes, isn't it,' said Helen. She took out her handkerchief and dried her eyes, drawing herself, then, into a more comfortable position against the trunk of a beech-tree.