"I doubt if Edie would look on it quite in that light. She thinks it was uncommonly hard on him." "Does she know?" "Oh, there's no end to the things that Edie knows." "And she loves him in spite of it?" "Yes. I suppose there's no end to that either." No end to her loving. That was the secret, then, of Edie's peace. Anne meditated upon that, and when she spoke again her voice rang on its vibrating, sub-passionate note. "And you said that I gave you rest. You were different." He made as if he would draw nearer to her, and refrained. The kind heart of Nature was in league with his. Nature, having foreknowledge of her own hour, warned him that his hour was not yet. And so he waited, while Nature, mindful of her purpose, began in Anne Majendie her holy, beneficent work. The soul of the place was charged with memories, with presciences, with prophecies. A thousand woodland influences, tender timidities, shy assurances, wooed her from her soul. They pleaded sweetly, persistently, till Anne's brooding face wore the flush of surrender to the mysteries of earth. The spell was broken by a squirrel's scurrying flight in the boughs above them. Anne looked up, and laughed, and their moment passed them by. CHAPTER X "Are you tired?" he asked. They had walked about the wood, made themselves hungry, and lunched like labourers at high noon. "No, I'm only thirsty. Do you think there's a cottage anywhere where you could get me some water?" "Yes, there's one somewhere about. I'll try and find it if you'll sit here and rest till I come back." She waited. He came back, but without the water. His eyes sparkled with some mysterious, irrepressible delight. "Can't you find it?" "Rather. I say, do come and look. There's such a pretty sight." She rose and went with him. Up a turning in the dell, about fifty yards from their tree, a long grassy way cut sheer through a sheet of wild hyacinths. It ran as if between two twin borders of blue mist, that hemmed it in and closed it by the illusion of their approach. On either side the blue mist spread, and drifted away through the inlets of the wood, and became a rarer and rarer atmosphere, torn by the tree-trunks and the fern. The path led to a small circular clearing, a shaft that sucked the daylight down. It was as if the sunshine were being poured in one stream from a flooded sky, and danced in the dark cup earth held for it. The trees grew close and tall round the clearing. Light dripped from their leaves and streamed down their stems, turning their grey to silver. The bottom of the cup was a level floor of grass that had soaked in light till it shone like emerald. A stone cottage faced the path; so small that a laburnum brushed its roof and a may-tree laid a crimson face against the grey gable of its side. The patch of garden in front was stuffed with wall-flowers and violets. The sun lay warm on them; their breath stirred in the cup, like the rich, sweet fragrance of the wine of day.