and the first scattered skirmishers of the coming army of flowers. It was a day of soft wind, when the shadows of the clouds go sweeping over the hills. Quite casually I happened upon a girl clambering over a hedge, and her dress had caught in a bramble, and the chat was quite impromptu and most idyllic. I remember she had three or four wood anemones in her hand—"wind stars" she called them, and I thought it a pretty name. And we talked of this and that, with a light in our eyes, as young folks will.
I quite forgot I was a Doomed Man. I surprised myself walking home with a confident stride that jarred with the sudden recollection of my funereal circumstances. For a moment I tried in vain to think what it was had slipped my memory. Then it came, colourless and remote. "Oh! Death. . . . He's a Bore," I said; "I've done with him," and laughed to think of having done with him.
"And why not so?" said I.
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