And just then Agnes Rivers's voice broke into a little song, hardly articulate, but clear and instinct with delight, even as the songs of birds, very early in spring, when pairing time has but just begun. Yet enchanting as the tones were, there was in them something remote and beyond the compass of human thought, piercing the young man to the very heart, so that he cried to her-- "Ah! my dear, come down, come near. Leave your singing, it is too sweet. It has too much to do with spirit and too little with flesh. It cuts like a knife. There--there--I am not blaming you, God forbid. Only, you have lived so long on the borderland between those two worlds, of which you once spoke, that you have a little lost touch with ordinary mortals such as I. Come down, come near. Don't you see what I mean? Don't you know what I want?" And after gentle converse, when that morning the dawn broke and with words of tender farewell, his fairy-lady crossed the yellow drawing-room and passed at the back of the outstanding satin-wood escritoire, as her habit was, it appeared to Laurence that, for the first time, a faint shadow followed her little feet. And this filled him with great and far-reaching hope--as the first dim greyness of land along the horizon fills the sailor after long voyaging upon the open sea. Nevertheless, she vanished as before, leaving him solitary, while of the manner of her going there remained no sign. XXI Days multiplied into weeks, March passed into April, April into May, June came with all its roses, the lime-trees flowered once again, and the scent of them was wafted across the broad lawns and in at the open windows, yet Laurence stayed on at Stoke Rivers. He had ceased to apologise for, or seek to justify his action. The fanatical, extravagant element of his character was fully in the ascendant, and it was conveniently contemptuous of criticism. He had become a law unto himself. He stayed because he intended to stay--there was the beginning and end of the matter. Meanwhile, he made discovery of pleasures subtle and subjective, hitherto unimagined. Living the life of the recluse, he enjoyed that sense of inward harmony and freedom of spirit known only to those who dare divorce themselves from society, with its many tyrannies, and from familiar commerce with their fellowmen. He experienced the sensible increase of will-power, and the mental elation, that are born of solitude, silence, and whole-hearted devotion to a single idea. The values shifted, and many worldly matters, many amusements, which had formerly appeared to him of vital importance, now began to appear slightly absurd. He ate and drank sparingly, since meat and liquor tend to render the action of the brain sluggish, and the imagination somewhat gross. His dear fairy-lady should regain the completeness of her humanity; but he would fit himself to meet her half way on her mysterious return journey from the regions of the dead, by purging