Mrs. Bentley; they were both quiet, fair, meditative Saxons. She lent her
whole mind to the conversation, interested in the account that the young
man gave of his dramatic aspirations.

From the dining-room window looking over the park the long road wound
through the vaporous country. The town stood in the middle distance, its
colour blotted out, and its smoke hardly distinguishable. In the room a
yellow dress turned grey, and the gold of a bracelet grew darker, and the
pink of delicate finger-nails was no longer visible. But the pensive dusk
of the dining-room, which blackened the claret in the decanters, leaving
only the faintest ruby glow in the glass which Hubert raised to his lips,
suited the tenor of the conversation, which had wandered from the dramatic
to the social side of the question. What did he think of divorce? She
sighed, and he wondered what her story might be.

They passed out of the dining-room, and stood on the gravel, watching the
night gathering in the open country. In the light of the moon, which had
just risen above the woods, the white road grew whiter, the town was
faintly seen in the tide of blue vapour, which here and there allowed a
field to appear. In the foreground a great silver fir, spiky and solitary,
rose up in the blue night. Beyond it was seen a corner of the ornamental
bridge. The island and its shadow were one black mass rising from the park
up to the level of the moon, which, a little to the right, between the town
and the island, lay reflected in a narrow strip of water. Farther away some
reeds were visible in the illusive light, and the meditative chatter of
dozing ducks stirred the silence which wrapped the country like a cloak.

Hubert and Mrs. Bentley stood looking at the landscape. The fragrance of
his cigar, the presence of the woman, the tenderness of the hour, combined
to make him strangely happy; his past life seemed to him like a harsh,