Then for a while Virgie forgot everything in the delight of examining this wonderful relic of a bygone civilisation. The sweet-faced, elderly lady who is custodian of the place, and speaks of it with reverence and fervour which are infectious, warmed towards the beauty and enthusiasm of this visitor. She showed her all that was to be seen, and explained each small detail of plan and execution. Virgie reconstructed in her own mind the entire existence of the wealthy officials, exiled from all that constituted their world, and cast away among these barbarian British in a fold of the Sussex hills, far, as it seemed, from all communication with their kind. Then, pointing across the valley to the romantic swell of the southern Downs, the custodian told how Stane Street, the great Roman highway, had crossed the hills from Chichester, just opposite where they stood. The Roman noble's sentinels must have seen every figure, every horseman, as he topped the rise, and have kept him in sight as he approached, the whole way into the valley. All gone! Even the semblance of the track wiped out! It would be ten miles before Baines would strike the still surviving section of the Roman road. The hour was nearly expired when they had seen all, and they strolled away to find somewhere to sit down until the car's return. Finally they sat upon the grass, Gerald's raincoat under them, near the lane, and watched the sunset fade from the sky. Gerald reverted to the coming of Ferris, and said how sorry he was to have made so stupid a plan. Virgie answered with impulsive penitence. She could not think how she came to be so disagreeable about a trifle--when he had given her this glorious day, and shown her such grand things, when she owed all her pleasure to him. She felt ashamed of herself. "I am so glad to have seen this," she said with unconscious pathos. "It has done me good. The thought of all that life and energy, here where even the memory has passed away, the quiet to which it has gone back--the disappearance of the great road, have brought home to me what a little thing one human life is. We walk in a vain shadow and disquiet ourselves in vain. I mean suffering, and being what we call unhappy, matters so little when you think how soon it will be over. That helps one to bear things." Her eyes, misty with regret, were fixed upon the amphitheatre of rolling downs and on the green, rabbit-run turf, where once the busy highway swarmed with traffic. He leaned towards her and spoke softly. "Thank you, dear, for trying to comfort me. I am trying to bear things, as you put it--I truly am. Most particularly because I know they are all my own fault. But I have to own that your thought brings me very little comfort. Here are you and here am I, alive and warm, wanting to enjoy our little day. The knowledge that, five centuries hence, nobody will ever have heard our names, does nothing to still my craving." She looked at him dumbly, and her lip quivered.