"Are we not on the hill top, dear?" he said. "You need have no fear. Only to-night I felt that I must say these things to you, even though the passion which they represent remains as ineffective forever as the words themselves. I have a feeling, you know, that after to-day things will be different." "Why should they be?" she asked. "In any case, your time cannot come yet." Once more he looked downward into the valley. Like a little speck along the road a motor-car was crawling along. "It is Mr. Bomford," he said. "He is coming to look for you." She rose to her feet. Together they stood, for a moment, hand in hand, looking down upon the flaming landscape. The fields at their feet were brilliant with color; in the far distance the haze of the sea. Their fingers were locked. "Mr. Bomford," he sighed, "is coming up the hill." "Then I think," she said quietly, "that we had better go down!" CHAPTER XVIII THE END OF A DREAM Dinner that evening was a curious meal, partly constrained, partly enlivened by strange little bursts of attempted geniality on the part of the professor. Mr. Bomford told long and pointless stories with much effort and the air of a man who would have made himself agreeable if he could. Edith leaned back in her chair, eating very little, her eyes large, her cheeks pale. She made her escape as soon as possible and Burton watched her with longing eyes as he passed out into the cool darkness. He half rose, indeed, to follow her, but his host and Mr. Bomford both moved their chairs so that they sat on either side of him. The professor filled the glasses with his own hand. It was his special claret, a wonderful wine, the cobwebbed bottle of which, reposing in a wicker cradle, he handled with jealous care. "Mr. Burton," he began, settling down in his chair, "we have been unjust to you, Mr. Bomford and I. We apologize. We ask your forgiveness." "Unjust?" Burton murmured. "Unjust," the professor repeated. "I allude to this with a certain amount of shame. We made you an offer of a thousand pounds for a portion of that--er--peculiar product to which you owe this wonderful change in your disposition. We were in the wrong. We had thoughts in our mind which we should have shared with you. It was not fair, Mr. Burton, to attempt to carry out such a scheme as Mr. Bomford here had conceived, without including you in it." The professor nodded to himself, amiably satisfied with his words. Burton remained mystified. Mr. Bomford took up the ball. "We yielded, Mr. Burton," he said, "to the natural impulse of all business men. We tried to make the best bargain we could for ourselves. A little reflection and--er--your refusal of our offer, has brought us into what I trust you will find a more reasonable frame of mind. We wish now to treat you with the utmost confidence. We wish to lay our whole scheme before you."