A fortnight passed . . . happily for Edwin in spite of all that he felt he ought to feel. He missed his mother awfully. That was true enough. And yet . . . and yet it was also true to say that he was only beginning to live: to appreciate the joy of his growing strength: to realise the enchanted domains that were open to his eager feet and to his eager mind. Here he had freedom, leisure, health: so much of the world to see: so much of human knowledge to explore. And though the thought of death, and the particular disaster that had befallen him fell upon his spirit sometimes with a shadow that plunged the whole world into desperate darkness, he could not deny that the shadow was gradually lifting, and the character of the agony that had desolated him was becoming less spontaneous, till, in the end, it became almost a calculable emotion that might be indulged or banished at will. He found it difficult to understand this. He thought: “I’m a brute, a callous, insensitive brute. What would she think of me . . .? And yet, I can’t help it. I’m made like that. . . .” And then, after long and bitter deliberation: “I believe she would understand. I expect she was made like that too. I’m sure she was. And if there’s one thing in the world that she’d hate it would be that I should force myself to pretend anything.” The high summer weather held. Never was there such a June. Edwin, in the joy of perfect health, would get up very early in the morning when the dew lay on the roses, and run in a sweater and flannel trousers down the lane and over the field to the mill-pond where he and his mother had walked so often in the evenings of spring. Here, where the water was deepest and great striped perch stole slowly under the camp-shedding, he would strip and bathe, lying on his back in the water so that low sunbeams came dancing over the surface into his eyes that were on the level of the flat water-lily leaves and their yellow balls now breaking into cups. Afterwards when he would sit glowing on the bank, the sun would be rising and growing warmer every minute, and this new warmth would seem to accentuate the odour of the place that was compact of the yellow water-lily’s harsh savour, the odour of soaked wood, and another, more subtly blended: the composite smell of water that is neither fast nor stagnant, the most provocative and the coolest smell on earth. On the way home he would sometimes get a whiff of the miller’s cowhouse, when the door was thrown open, and from within there came a sound of quiet breathing or of milk hissing in a pail. And sometimes, from the garden, the scent of a weed bonfire would drift across his path. All things smelt more poignantly at this early hour of the morning. All things smell more wonderfully early in life. . . .