“Ah! not as I could wish,” she said. “We seem all intellect at times, you and I. Yet—if I say more I shall hurt you. Ah! God knows, I want to be a help to you.” “Before God, you help me,” he said, drawing in a deep breath. Beyond the moors the hills were streaks of blue in a golden atmosphere. The air was sultry, preternaturally clear, eloquent of stormy weather. Everywhere the gorse was tonguing into flame. The meadows were rimmed with gold as the two passed back towards the dark knolls of the yews and cypresses. There was a certain sadness over them both, a prophecy of evil that seemed to hover over their hearts like clouds over silent mountain tarns. Joan stood in the gravel drive and swung her hat by the strings. She did not look at the man as she spoke. “My father is in the garden,” she said. “Yes?” “Will you see him?” “If you wish it,” he said, quickly. “Wait. I will go to him first; he may be asleep.” She disappeared amid the dark whorls of the cypress boughs like a white figure of truth. Gabriel leaned against the trellis and covered his face with his hand. Sudden foreboding, a sense of imminent woe, gathered about his soul like a heavy cloud massing overhead. A fatalistic spirit seemed to seize on him out of the unknown. Had he then driven the childhood out of this girl’s life and made her wise to her own distress. He was conscious suddenly of the supreme egotism that had grown up flesh of his flesh, spirit of his spirit. His face was white and strained when Joan reappeared from amid the trees. “He is not there,” she said. She marked the look on the man’s face—the gray, tired stare of one in pain. “Gabriel, what ails you?” Her eyes were very bright and eager, and there was a kind of half-fear on her face. “Nothing,” he said. “I am only a little faint.” She opened the heavy oak door, beckoned him across the hall, and led him into a large, shadowy room, lighted by three mullioned windows towards the west. Wainscoting covered the walls. The floor was of parqueterie carpeted with several old rugs. Antique china, interspersed with bowls of anemones, red and blue, filled the carved mantel-shelf. The grate was black and cumbersome, the hearth inlaid with tiles of a dark-green color. In the centre of the room a round mahogany table bore a great blue bowl ablaze with marsh marigolds. Heavy damask red curtains were half drawn across the window recesses. Joan flung one back, opened a casement frame, pointed Gabriel to the cushioned window-seat. “Rest there, dear; I must go and find my father.”