Will was hot and dusty with his long tramp from Interlaken. It was a broiling day. He sat down by Linnet’s side on the grassy slope that looks across towards the lake and the great snow-clad giants of the Bernese Oberland. That was the very first time he had been quite alone with her since she married Andreas. The very first time since those delicious mornings on the vine-draped Küchelberg. They sat there long and talked, Linnet picking tall grasses all the while with her twitching fingers, and pulling them into joints, and throwing them away bit by bit, with her eyes fixed hard on them. After a time as they sat, and grew more at home with one another, they fell naturally into talk of the old days at St Valentin. They were both of them timid, and both self-conscious; yet in the open air, out there on that Alpine hillside, it all seemed so familiar, so homely, so simple—so like those lost hours long ago in the Zillerthal—that by degrees their shyness and reserve wore off, and they fell to talking more easily and unrestrainedly. Once or twice Will even called her “Linnet,” _tout court_, without noticing it; but Linnet noticed it herself, and felt a thrill of strange joy, followed fast by a pang of intense remorse, course through her as she sat there. By-and-by, their talk got round by slow degrees to London. Linnet had seen one of Will’s pieces at the Duke of Edinburgh’s, in June, and admired it immensely. “How I should love to sing in something of your composing, Herr Will,” she exclaimed, with fervour. “Just for old times’ sake, you know—when neither of us was well-known, and when we met at St Valentin.” Will looked down a little nervously. “I’ve often thought,” he said, with a stifled sigh; “I should love to write something on purpose for you, Linnet. I know your voice and its capabilities so well, I’ve watched you so close—for your career has interested me; and I think it would inspire one, both in the lines and in the music, to know one was working for a person one—well . . . one knew and liked, and . . . had met before, under other circumstances.” He looked away, and hesitated. Linnet clasped her hands in front of her between her knees, on her simple tweed frock, and stared studiously at the mountains. “Oh, that would be lovely!” she cried, pressing her fingers ecstatically. “That would be charming! that would be beautiful! I should love that I should sing in something you’d written, and, above all, in something you’d written for _me_, Will. I’m sure it would inspire me too—it would inspire both of us. I do not think you could write for anybody, or I could sing for anybody, as we could write and sing, each one of us, for one another. We should do ourselves justice then. Why don’t you try it?”