and smelling at the roses, the carnations, and those sweet last gifts that summer leaves behind when she sweeps her bright skirts away to make room for autumn, and I have gathered me a nosegay at Mr. Frere's request, and am tying it together with a wisp of dry grass. We have wandered to the gate that gives on the road, and while Mr. Vasher smokes his cigar, and Mr. Frere talks from time to time, we watch the cows go past, making all the air "like the sweet south, that breathes upon a bank of violets," and half a dozen labourers, and a tipsy man; for, strange to say, even in this out of the world corner, people are as much inclined to be wicked as anywhere else. Mr. Frere has his eyes fixed upon the portals of the shining city, through which the sun seems to have only just passed; his face is grave; perhaps he is thinking of the gold and silver and jewels of his youth that are stored away there, to be given back to him by God's hand maybe, when this life is over past. Mr. Vasher's face is so calm and still and indifferent as he leans over the gate, blowing a smoke wreath up into the clear blue azure above us, that I inly marvel whether he were not joking a while ago when he spoke as though the past had proved more bitter than sweet to him.
The sound of hoofs strikes sharply on my ears; looking up I see a horsewoman approaching at a foot pace, her head is bent, the reins are hanging loosely from her hand, her face is almost hidden. At my side I feel a sudden leap, a stir, and a hoarse voice, deep and shaken, says below its breath, "My God!" Turning, I see Paul Vasher's face convulsed by love, hate, scorn, longing, loathing . . . which is it of all these feelings that possesses and shakes him? I look at the girl, she is riding slowly by; she has not lifted her head or moved one hair's-breadth. I feel rather than hear the sigh of relief he gives (surely it is relief?) when she lifts her eyes, looks full in his face, then, it is all in a moment, the reins slip from her hands, she sways and falls headlong to the earth. She does not
