“Years ago, as perhaps you know, not long after my ordination I was working in London. My father lived here then, as his father before him. That coat of arms in the centre of that iron gate was put up by him soon after he succeeded to the property. I used to come down here now and then for a breath of country air. I hardly remember any pleasure so keen as the pleasure of coming into this glorious country air out of the smoke and noise of London––or of lying awake at night with the rustle of the pines outside my window instead of the ceaseless human tumult of the town. “Well, I came down here once, suddenly, on a summer evening, bearing heavy news. I need not go into details; it would be useless to do that––but it will be enough to say that the news did not personally affect me or my family. It was a curious series of circumstances that led me to be the bearer of such news at all––but it was to a lady who happened by the merest chance to be staying with my family. I scarcely knew her at all––in fact I had only seen her once before. The news had come to my ears in London, and I had heard that the one whom it most concerned did not know it––and that they dared not write or telegraph. I volunteered of course to take the news myself. “It was with a very heavy heart that I walked up from the station––the road seemed intolerably short. I may say that I knew that the news would be heart-breaking to her who had to hear it. I came in by the gate at the end of the avenue” (he waved his hand round to the right) “and passed right down to the back of the house, behind us. This door at which we are sitting had been the front door, but the drive had just been turfed over, and we used the door at the back instead, and this lawn here was very much as you see it now, only the drive still showed plainly like a long narrow grave across the grass. “As I came in through the door at the back, she was coming out, with a book and a basket-chair to sit in the garden. My heart gave a terrible throb of pain––for I knew that by the time my business was done there would be no thought of a quiet evening in the garden, and that look of serene happiness would be wiped out of her face––and all through what I had to say. For a moment she did not recognise me in the dark entry and stood back as I came in, and then–––– “‘Why it is you,’ she said; ‘you have come home. I did not know you were expected.’ “I breathed a moment steadily to recover myself. “‘I was not expected,’ I said; and then, after a moment: ‘May I speak to you?’ “‘Speak to me? Why, certainly. In the garden or here?’ “‘In here,’ I answered, and went past her and pushed open the door into this room. “She came past me, and stood here by the door still holding the book, with her finger between the leaves.