"I'll step fifteen paces," said Mr. Clare, hiding his emotion with a piece of practical utility. And, as he began to measure the ground, away down in the broken chariot, Phyllida woke with a start. She was surprized by the daylight and called to her lover. Only birdsong answered her voice. In sudden dismay, presentiment hanging over her like the aftermath of an evil dream, she jumped from the chariot. Intuition, perhaps the remembrance of last night's fear, made her look towards the summit of the slope. In silhouette against the golden sky, she saw three figures. Breathless with horror she ran in their direction. Up the hill she laboured. It was still cold from the night air and foreboding was heavy upon her heart. Up the hill she struggled, leaving in her path many fluttering pieces of muslin where eager feet had torn the frail flounces. Down the road, she saw them level their weapons. "One, two, three," came in measured tones along the still air of the morning. There were two shots, the scud of frightened rabbits to their burrows, a reeling figure, a cloud across the sun, a mist over life, and she was kneeling in the dewy grass beside Amor. "Oh, God!" she screamed, "He's dead. Oh! Oh! Oh!" That anguished cry wounded Lovely deeper than any leaden bullet, for it killed his hopes. At the touch of his dear one, Vernon opened his dark eyes. "Here's a bunch of primroses," he murmured, "not daisies. I picked them, Phyllida ... for you ... not daisies ... primroses...." And so with thoughts of flowers, Mr. Francis Vernon died. Pray let that sentence be his epitaph. Charles, watching the maid stare into the sun with eyes whose light seemed fled with the swift-flying soul of the dead man, wished passionately--wildly--that he were the quiet body there in the dewy grass. "What shall we do?" he murmured brokenly to Clare. "Leave her alone for a while." "What a mistake it has been." They walked away with cautious steps and spoke in whispers as if they were afraid. "What right had I to interfere between lovers?" "You did it for the best." "I know, I know, but what a d----d number of silly actions are done for the best." "To-day is the first of April," said Clare, seeking with a commonplace to relieve the tension of Charles's distracted mind. "Is it? What an April fool fortune has made of me." _Chapter the Thirty-seventh_ APRIL FOOLS The last ejaculation of Chapter XXXVI will serve as an admirable summary of the positions in which a number of our characters found themselves on April the First, in the year whose annals include this small history.