‘_For our love had seemed impossibly great before. O heart of mine! is it that passion is dying--leaping high before burning out? I cannot breathe as I think of you--cannot sit, nor walk, nor lie, but must everlastingly fall with my spirit ebbing from my lips._’ At this I bowed my head and covered my eyes with my hand. What talisman gave Phyllida power to evoke such mental agony. The very fragmentariness of the selections maddened me. Each word seemed as if it might have been forced from me, or from one of my impossible heroes. ‘_You are mine for ever. Strive as you will against the gossamer network that I have flung over you; call on your God for assistance; curse me until you hate, and yet there is no remedy._’ The voice that had grown so soft as to be almost a whisper ceased now, and looking up I found that I was alone. PART II THE MARRIAGE MORNING The roofless building where Phyllida had desired our marriage to be solemnised lies in the outermost corner of the Colmer estate. I had only seen it once before; on a spring twilight when, reckless with undeclared passion, neither knowing nor caring whither I went, I had stumbled into the enclosure, where the scent of withering snowdrops filled the air. Dreams that were beautified by traditions half understood before swept through my brain in the short disturbed sleep of the marriage morning. I saw Patrick Drassington killing the last wolf in England on the Wyke Quicksand, saw him staggering homeward to the manor-house with the monstrous head in his arms, and the wound in his side vomiting life-blood. Legends I had gleaned from the Colmer records came on in rapid succession:--I traced the histories of the Princess Ursula from Ravenna, who married Elizabeth’s favourite, and slew herself so that on her death-bed she might hear her husband declare his love revived; of Margot Colmer, who laid down her life for Charles the Second; of faithful Driden, the steward, who, like Catherine Douglas, strove to save his master at the cost of his right arm. A thousand other pictures followed. Indeed, I was just in the act of mounting a pillion to ride before a woman in sea-green paduasoy when I woke to find the sun risen, and the clock in the house-place striking four. My wedding clothes lay beside the bed; I gazed at them for some time ere I rose, scarcely believing my own happiness; then, when I sprang to the floor, I drew aside the window curtain and looked down into the orchard. The cherries had ripened in the night; they were large and lush, with wasps a-grovel in the bursting sweetness of their sides.