Since then--He looked round him at the river and the hills. There was a flush of sunset through the air, and the blue of the river was interlaced with rosy or golden reflections from a sky piled with stormy cloud and aglow with every "visionary majesty" of light and colour. The great cloud-masses were driving in a tragic splendour through the west; and hue and form alike, throughout the wide heaven, seemed to him to breathe a marvellous harmony and poetry, to make one vibrating "word" of beauty. Had some god suddenly gifted him with new senses and new eyes? Never had he felt so much joy in Nature, such a lifting up to things awful and divine. Why? Because a beautiful woman had been walking beside him?--because he had been talking with her of things that he, at least, rarely talked of--realities of feeling, or thought, or memory, that no woman had ever shared with him before? How had she drawn him to such openness, such indiscretions? He was half ashamed, and then forgot his discomfort in the sudden, eager glancing of the mind to the future, to the opportunities of the day just coming--for Mrs. Allison's party was to last till Whit Tuesday--to the hours and places in London where he was to meet her on those social errands of hers. What a warm, true heart! What a woman, through all her dreams and mistakes, and therefore how adorable! * * * * * He quickened his pace as the light failed. Presently he saw a figure coming towards him, emerging from the trees that skirted the main lawn. It was Fontenoy, and Fontenoy's supporter must needs recollect himself as quickly as possible. He had not seen much of his leader during the day. But he knew well that Fontenoy never forgot his _role_, and there were several points, newly arisen within the last forty-eight hours, on which he might have expected before this to be called to counsel. But Fontenoy, when he came up with the wanderer, seemed to have no great mind for talk. He had evidently been pacing and thinking by himself, and when he was fullest of thought he was as a rule most silent and inarticulate. "You are late; so am I," he said, as he turned back with Tressady. George assented. "I have been thinking out one or two points of tactics." But instead of discussing them he sank into silence again. George let him alone, knowing his ways. Presently he said, raising his powerful head with a jerk, "But tactics are not of such importance as they were. I think the thing is done--_done!_" he repeated with emphasis. George shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. We may be too sanguine. It is not possible that Maxwell should be easily beaten." Fontenoy laughed--a strange, high laugh, like a jay's, that seemed to have no relation to his massive frame, and died suddenly away. "But we shall beat him," he said quietly; "and her, too. A well-meaning woman--but what a foolish one!" George made no reply.