noticed his silence; and when they passed through the night of an
overhanging wood her flesh thrilled, and a little faintness came over her;
for the leaves that brushed her face had seemed like a kiss from her lover.




XV


One afternoon, about the end of September, Hubert came down from his study
about tea-time, and announced that he had written the last scene of his
last act. Emily was alone in the drawing-room.

'Oh, how glad I am! Then it is done at last. Why not write at once and
engage the theatre? When shall we go to London?'

'Well, I don't mean that the play could be put into rehearsal to-morrow. It
still requires a good deal of overhauling. Besides, even if it were
completely finished, I should not care to produce it at once. I should like
to lay it aside for a couple of months, and see how it read then.'

'What a lot of trouble you do take! Does every one who writes plays take so
much trouble?'

'No, I'm afraid they do not, nor is it necessary they should. Their plays
are merely incidents strung together more or less loosely; whereas my play
is the development of a temperament, of temperamental characteristics which
cannot be altered, having been inherited through centuries; it must
therefore pursue its course to a fatal conclusion. In Shakespeare---- But