As it was, she staggered slightly, and he had to take her by the arm. So, with one hand grasping her hand and the other her arm, he held her for a moment--for longer than a moment. Then he placed her on the cushion, and seating himself, took up the sculls and pushed off. Stella leant back, and of course dropped one hand in the water. Not one woman out of twenty who ever sat in a boat can resist that impulse to have closer communion with the water; and he pulled slowly across the stream. The sun shone full upon them, making their way a path of rippling gold, and turning Stella's hair into a rich brown. Little wonder that, as he sat opposite her, his eyes should rest on her face, and less that, thus resting, its exquisite beauty and freshness and purity should sink into the soul of him to whom beauty was the one thing worth living for. Unconscious of his rapt gaze, Stella leant back, her eyes fixed on the water, her whole attention absorbed by its musical ripple as it ran through her fingers. In silence he pulled the sculls, slowly and noiselessly; he would not have spoken and broken the spell for worlds. Before him, as he looked upon her, rose the picture of which he had spoken to his sister last night. "But more beautiful," he mused--"more beautiful! How lost she is! She has forgotten me--forgotten everything. Oh, Heaven! if one were to waken her into love!" For an instant, at the thought, the color came into his face and the fire to his eyes; then a half guilty, half repentful feeling struck through him. "No, it would be cruel--cruel: and yet to see the azure light shining in those eyes--to see those lips half parted with the breath of a great passion, would be worth--what? It would make amends for all that a man might suffer, though he died the next moment, if those eyes smiled, if those lips were upturned, for love of him!" So lost were they that the touching of the boat and the bank made them start. "So soon," murmured Stella. "How beautiful it is! I think I was dreaming." "And I know that I was," he said, with a subtle significance, as he rose and held out his hand. But Stella sprang lightly on shore without accepting it. He tied up the boat and followed her; she was already on her knee, picking the yellow primroses. Without a word, he followed her example. Sometimes they were so near together that she could feel his breath stirring her hair--so near that their hands almost met. At last she sank on to the mossy ground with a laugh, and, pointing to her hat, which was full of the spring earth-stars, said laughingly: "What ruthless pillage! Do not pick any more; it is wanton waste!" "Are you sure you have plenty?" he said. "Why hesitate when there are such millions?" "No, no more!" she said. "I feel guilty already!" He glanced at the handful he had gathered, and she saw the glance and laughed. "You do not know what to do with those you have, and still want more. See, you must tie them in bundles.