Then it wasn't a dream. The sound of her voice whipped the wandering fantasies of his brain into coherency. With a shout he jumped forward, and ran as he had not done since that one great game when, as a 'scrub,' he had his chance against Yale. 'Oh-oh-oh,' she laughed, 'I'm--winded.' He caught her up in his arms as if her weight were no more than a child's, and carried her forward a hundred paces. His strength was limitless. He felt as if his body would never again know the lassitude of fatigue. His pulses were throbbing with double fever: that of the world and his own hot love for her. Yes, it was love. What a fool he had been ever to doubt it! His last thoughts at night were of her; the last word whispered was her name; the last picture shrouded by the approaching mists of sleep was of her face. What was morning but a sunlit moment that meant Elise? What was the day, what were the years, what was life, but one great moment to be lived for Elise--Elise? 'Put me down, Austin. There! you'll be tired.' 'Tired!' But her feet had touched the ground, and she was away again by herself, like a tantalising sprite of the woods. The errant lock had been joined in its mutiny by a wealth of dark-hued, auburn hair, blowing free in the reckless summer breeze. Out of the estate and along the highway, shadowed by tall bushes; past cottages hiding in snug retreat of vines and flowers; past the cross-roads, with their sign-post standing like a gibbet waiting its prize; past the inn on the outskirts of the village, with its creaking sign, and its neighing horses in the stable; past the church on the rise of the hill, with its graveyard and its ivy-covered steeple--and then the village. Gathered in the square they could see a group of people listening to a man who was reading something aloud. 'It's the rector,' said Elise. 'Let us wait a minute. Can you hear what he is saying?' The voice had stopped, and the crowd broke into a cheer that echoed strangely on the night-air. It had hardly died away when a quavering, high-pitched voice started 'God Save the King,' and with a sturdy indifference to pitch the rest followed, the octogenarian who had begun it sounding clear above the others as he half-whistled and half-sang the anthem through his two remaining teeth. 'That's old Hills!' cried Elise, laughing hysterically. 'He was at Sebastopol.' The crowd was coming away. Some were boisterous, others silent. A girl was laughing, but there was a strange look in her eyes. Bounding ahead in high appreciation of the village's nocturnal behaviour, a nondescript hound was preceding an elderly widow who was weeping quietly as with faltering step she clung to the arm of her son, who was carrying himself with a new erectness. Behind them walked Mathews the groom, corn-cob pipe and all, shaking his head argumentatively and squaring his shoulders. An Empire had declared war. III.