“Then I give you ‘To our vast and varying fortunes.’” He lifted his hand in pledge. “‘To our vast and varying fortunes,’” she answered gravely, and speaking in cold tones. “Arthur!” she said. The keeper pretended not to hear. Syson, watching keenly, began to smile. The woman drew herself up. “Arthur!” she said again, with a curious upward inflection, which warned the two men that her soul was trembling on a dangerous crisis. The keeper slowly put down his tool and came to her. “Yes,” he said. “I wanted to introduce you,” she said, trembling. “I’ve met him a’ready,” said the keeper. “Have you? It is Addy, Mr Syson, whom you know about.—This is Arthur, Mr Pilbeam,” she added, turning to Syson. The latter held out his hand to the keeper, and they shook hands in silence. “I’m glad to have met you,” said Syson. “We drop our correspondence, Hilda?” “Why need we?” she asked. The two men stood at a loss. “_Is_ there no need?” said Syson. Still she was silent. “It is as you will,” she said. They went all three together down the gloomy path. “‘_Qu’il était bleu, le ciel, et grand l’espoir_,’” quoted Syson, not knowing what to say. “What do you mean?” she said. “Besides, _we_ can’t walk in _our_ wild oats—we never sowed any.” Syson looked at her. He was startled to see his young love, his nun, his Botticelli angel, so revealed. It was he who had been the fool. He and she were more separate than any two strangers could be. She only wanted to keep up a correspondence with him—and he, of course, wanted it kept up, so that he could write to her, like Dante to some Beatrice who had never existed save in the man’s own brain. At the bottom of the path she left him. He went along with the keeper, towards the open, towards the gate that closed on the wood. The two men walked almost like friends. They did not broach the subject of their thoughts. Instead of going straight to the high-road gate, Syson went along the wood’s edge, where the brook spread out in a little bog, and under the alder trees, among the reeds, great yellow stools and bosses of marigolds shone. Threads of brown water trickled by, touched with gold from the flowers. Suddenly there was a blue flash in the air, as a kingfisher passed.