He stopped, and leaned upon a great beech, which stood with a little forest of juniper-bushes round it, withdrawn from the road. It was on the outskirts of the park, just where two paths met--one starting off into the wilder tangled ground beyond the open; the other leading up towards the house on a parallel with the avenue which John had just left. He was crossing through the brushwood to gain this footpath, when he stopped there against the beech-tree to collect himself, feeling giddy. It was a huge beech, with a trunk vast enough to have hidden a company of people, and great russet branches sweeping down, and the juniper in circles, like the stones of the Druids, making a sort of jungle round it. Was it an evil or a good fate that brought him there at that moment of all others? He had scarcely stopped, and the sound of his foot crushing down the juniper could not have ceased in the still air, when his eye caught a gleam of colour and some moving figures passing close to him on the other side of the beech. He stood like one bewildered when he saw that it was Kate. She was walking along slowly at a very meditative pace, with her head drooping and her eyes cast down, so far occupied with her thoughts that she neither heard nor saw nor suspected the presence of any observing bystander. And she was not alone. Walking by her side, with his eyes upon her, was Fred Huntley. She was gazing on the ground, but he was gazing at her. Her face was abstracted and full of thought; but his was eager, flushed with wishes and hopes and expectation. They were not saying anything to each other. John did not hear a word as they went slowly past; but imagine how it must have felt to wake up out of a feverish haze of doubt and inquietude and unreality, and suddenly open his eyes on such a sight! He stood spell-bound, scarcely venturing to breathe, and heard the rustle and sweep of her dress over the grass, and her sometimes faltering, unsteady step, and Huntley’s foot, that rang firm upon the path. Their very breathing seemed to come to him in the air, and the faint violet scent, which was Kate’s favourite perfume, and the movement and rustle of her going. They passed as if they had been a dream, and John held his breath, and all his life concentrated itself into his eyes. Her figure detached itself so against the still autumnal landscape, her grey dress, the blue ribbons that fluttered softly about her, the soft ruffled feathers, lightly puffed up against the wind in her hat--and the man by her side, with his eyes so intent upon her. It was an affair of a moment, and they were gone; and as soon as they had passed out of hearing, and were about to disappear among the trees, they began to talk. He heard their voices, but could not tell what they said; but the voices were low, toned to the key of that still landscape, and of something still more potential than the landscape; and John turned from the scene, which was stamped on his memory as if