Canterton found himself in the garden with his hand on the gate leading into the lane. The moon had swung clear of the fir woods, and a pale, silvery horizon glimmered above the black tops of the trees. Canterton wandered on down the lane, paused where it joined the high road, and stood for a while under the dense canopy of a yew. He felt himself in a different atmosphere, breathing a new air, and he let himself contemplate life as it might have appeared, had there been no obvious barriers and limitations. For the moment he had no desire to go back to Fernhill, to break the dream, and pick up the associations that Fernhill suggested. The house was overrun by his wife’s friends who had come to stay for the garden party. Lynette would be asleep, and she alone, at Fernhill, entered into the drama of his dreams. Mrs. Carfax and the little maid had gone to bed, and Eve, left to herself, was turning over her Latimer pictures and staring at them with peculiar intensity. They suggested much more to her than the Latimer gardens, being part of her own consciousness, and part of another’s consciousness. Her face had a glowing pallor as she sat there, musing, wondering, staring into impossible distances with a mingling of exultation and unrest. Did he know what had happened to them both? Had he realised all that had overtaken them in the course of one short week? The room felt close and hot, and turning down the lamp, Eve went into the narrow hall, opened the door noiselessly, and stepped out into the garden. Moonlight flooded it, and the dew glistened on the grass. She wandered down the path, looking at the moon and the mountainous black outlines of the fir woods. And suddenly she stopped. A man was sitting in the chair that had been left out on the lawn. He started up, and stood bareheaded, looking at her half guiltily. “Is it you?” “I am sorry. I was just dreaming.” He hesitated, one hand on the back of the chair. “I wanted to think——” “Yes.” “Good night!” “Good night!” She watched him pass through the gate and down the lane. And everything seemed very strange and still. * * * * * CHAPTER XIV MRS. CARFAX FINISHES HER KNITTING It was a curious coincidence that Mrs. Carfax should have come to the end of her white wool that night, put her pins aside and left her work unfinished. It was the last time that Eve heard the familiar clicking of the ivory pins, for Mrs. Carfax died quietly in her sleep, and was found with a placid smile on her face, her white hair neatly parted into two plaits, and her hands lying folded on the coverlet. She had died like a child, dreaming, and smiling in the midst of her dreams.