"I see the wonder and beauty of things as they are. I see that they satisfy. I see that that's enough, that--that they're a kind of avenue down which a man can go forward. And at the end, perhaps, he will find, not all the secret, but a still living lovely lake of water into which he will plunge, content." "Water?" Paul nodded, with bright eyes. "The water of life," he said. "And what is that, do you think?" "I don't know. It's sure to be beautiful, though." "Very, Paul, I think," replied Ursula, speaking very quietly as she often did. Paul studied her face. "I would like you to be there," he said, a little restlessly. "Would you?" she said. "Well, we shall see." Next morning, Ursula went up to town and took up residence again in her flat. Mrs. Manning had fluttered about her all the afternoon, and learned nothing. Her daughter seemed wholly unaware that she might have any question to ask, and Mrs. Manning did not dare ask her anything directly. But she thought she might learn more from Paul. So, when her daughter's car had driven off, she and her sister walked round to the Manor with a note Ursula had left for Paul. They found him at work. He got up, pen in hand, and a look in the back of his eyes that Mrs. Manning saw in her daughter's when she was very busily painting. "Ursula's gone to town," said her mother, "and she's left you this note." "Has she?" queried Paul. "She didn't tell me she was going." He tore it open, and read it quickly. It only took him a few seconds to read and he smiled as he finished. "That's all right," he said. "It's nothing much, Mrs. Manning, only about my work." "Well, we won't interrupt you now," she said politely. "Come in when you can." At the end of a long morning's work, Paul picked up the note as if he had not seen it before, and re-read it. "I'm off to town," she had written. "I've had a sudden notion. Give my love to the Beggar-Man. You and he have got your work to do together just now, and I should only interrupt, but call me in at the finish and I want a box the first night. URSULA." Having read it, Paul smiled again. He was still preoccupied with the beauty of the budding limes that arched the avenue of Sight. CHAPTER XI URSULA If you teach a man to keep his eyes upon what others think of him, unthinkingly to lead the life and hold the principles of the majority of his contemporaries, you must discredit in his eyes the authoritative voice of his own soul. He may be a docile citizen; he will never be a man. It is ours, on the other hand, to disregard the babble and chattering of other men better and worse than we are, and to walk straight before us by what light we have. They may be right; but so, before heaven, are we. They may know; but we know also, and by that knowledge we must stand or fall. There is such a thing as loyalty to a man's better self; and from those who have not that, God help me, how am I to look for loyalty to others? ...