In the trees in the garden below the blackbirds began to bustle amongst the leaves, and all at once their clear, sweet music thrilled upward to the lovers in the hollow of the down. "Lie close, my dear," he repeated. They watched the sun leap into the heavens and flash down the Channel in golden light. "The night has gone," said Chayne. "Nothing can take it from us while we live," answered Sylvia, very softly. She raised herself from her couch of leaves. Then from one of the cottages in the tiny village a blue coil of smoke rose into the air. "It is time," said Chayne, and they rose and hand in hand walked down the slope of the hill to the house. Sylvia unlatched the door noiselessly and went in. Chayne stepped in after her; and in the silent hall they took farewell of one another. "Good-by, my dear," she whispered, with the tears in her eyes and in her voice, and she clung to him a little and so let him go. She held the door ajar until the sound of his footsteps had died away--and after that. For she fancied that she heard them still, since, she so deeply wished to hear them. Then with a breaking heart she went up the stairs to her room. CHAPTER XXI CHAYNE COMES TO CONCLUSIONS "Six weeks ago I said good-by to the French Commission on the borders of a great lake in Africa. A month ago I was still walking to the rail head through the tangle of a forest's undergrowth," said Chayne, and he looked about the little restaurant in King Street, St. James', as though to make sure that the words he spoke were true. The bright lights, the red benches against the walls, the women in their delicate gowns of lace, and the jingle of harness in the streets without, made their appeal to one who for the best part of a year had lived within the dark walls of a forest. June had come round again, and Sylvia sat at his side. "You shall tell me how these months have gone with you while we dine," said he. "Your letters told me nothing of your troubles." "I did not mean them to," replied Sylvia. "I guessed that, my dear. It was like you. Yet I would rather have known." Only a few hours before he had stood upon the deck of the Channel packet and had seen the bows swing westward of Dover Castle and head toward the pier. Would Sylvia be there, he had wondered, as he watched the cluster of atoms on the quay, and in a little while he had seen her, standing quite alone, at the very end of the breakwater that she might catch the first glimpse of her lover. Others had traveled with them in the carriage to London and there had been no opportunity of speech. All that he knew was that she had been alone now for some weeks in the little house in Hobart Place. "One thing I see," he said. "You are not as troubled as you were. The look of fear--that has gone from your eyes. Sylvia, I am glad!"