What did it matter now? He was on his way to find Jane. As he went up the lane he observed many things that he had scarcely noticed since his boyhood,—the scarlet berries of spice bush, and Jack-in-the-Pulpit, the frost-bleached fronds of wood and lady ferns, while feathers of white now wreathed many groups of dull green bushes that earlier in the season he would have passed unnoticed. A curve in the lane brought him directly upon a tall figure, which, basket on arm, was gathering sprays of the plumy white things; it was a woman dressed in dark blue with red at the belt and throat, above which showed a wealth of bright, white, wavy hair, the face being in shadow; who was it? The dress brought some sort of compelling memory to John Hale, but the hair did not fit it. A branch broke under his foot, and the figure turned; it was Jane Mostyn, surely, her eyebrows and lashes, black as of old, a rich colour on cheeks and lips, while the white hair gave her an almost dramatic beauty. But why was Miss Mostyn in colours, when for the last three months she had been so heavily draped in black that her shadow seemed to leave a chill behind? “I did not know that you ever came to these woods,” she said, glancing down at her gown, in visible embarrassment. Suddenly the combination was translated to Hale, memory coupled with intuition—she wore either the gown in which he had seen her on the Venice quay that other September day, or else its counterpart. So she had not forgotten! “May I walk back with you? I was coming to see you. But then perhaps you would prefer that Mrs. Atwood should come as chaperon; she drove past the house an hour ago in a fine red motor-car.” “He has not forgotten,” said Jane Mostyn’s second self, of whom, lacking any other, she had made a confidant of late years; what she said, however, was, “We will not go home; I am tired of shade and the pent feeling of the lowlands; let us go back up to the hilltop in the open, where one may see, hear, and breathe broadly, openly. This morning when I was in the library, I thought I should suffocate if I did not get away from both the place and myself for a day at least.” Then, looking at Hale, he thought rather anxiously, she added quickly as if she must say the words at any cost, “As I could not change my body and travel backward to youth, I changed my clothes.” “What is that you are gathering?” Hale asked, transferring the basket to his arm and touching the feathers lightly; “I’ve never seen it before, and yet it grows here in profusion.” “Groundsel-tree,” she answered; “you might pass by week in and out and never notice it, for its flower has no beauty; for that it must wait until frost releases its seed wings. I love the dear, shy thing; it has blown from the lowlands, and it keeps one’s courage up.”