"Then you must all come to Clewes," decided Aunt Beatrice, after some remonstrance. "That'll settle it." "But my work!" ejaculated Ian in dismay. "How am I to get on at Clewes, away from the libraries?" "There are some things in life more important than books, Ian," returned Lady Thomson. "But it won't do a penn'orth of good," broke in Tims, argumentatively. "I don't pretend to have more than a working hypothesis, but whoever else may prove to be right, Lady Thomson's on the wrong line." Lady Thomson surveyed her in silence; Ian took no notice of her remark. He was looking before him with a sadness incomprehensible to the uncreative man--to the man who has never dreamed dreams and seen visions; with the sadness of one who just as the cloudy emanations of his mind are beginning to take form and substance sees them scattered, perhaps never again to reunite, by some cold breath from the relentless outside world of circumstance. He made his renunciation in silence; then, with a quiet smile, he turned to Lady Thomson and answered her. "You're very kind, Aunt Beatrice, and quite right. There are things in life much more important than books." CHAPTER XXI So the summer went by; a hot summer, passed brightly enough to all appearance in the spacious rooms and gardens of Clewes and in expeditions among the neighboring fells. But to Ian it seemed rather an anxious pause in life. His work was at a stand-still, yet whatever the optimistic Aunt Beatrice might affirm, he could not feel that the shadow was lifting from his wife's mind. To others she appeared cheerful in the quiet, serious way that had always been hers, but he saw that her whole attitude towards life, especially in her wistful, yearning tenderness towards himself and Tony, was that of a woman who feels the stamp of death to be set upon her. At night, lying upon his breast, she would sometimes cling to him in an agony of desperate love, adjuring him to tell her the truth as to that Other: whether he did not see that she was different from his own Milly, whether it were possible that he could love that mysterious being as he loved her, his true, loving wife. Ian, who had been wont to hold stern doctrines as to the paramount obligation of truthfulness, perjured himself again and again, and hoped the Recording Angel dropped the customary tear. But, however deep the perjury, before long he was sure to find himself obliged to renew it.