he could see the water in Bosham Creek like a silver mirror, and the
Channel rippling silver beyond. He turned round. Beneath him lay the blue
dark weald of Sussex, and through it he imagined the hidden line of the
road driving straight as a ruler to London.

"No going about!" he said. "If a hill was in the way the road climbed
over it; if a marsh it was built through it."

They rode on slowly along the great whaleback of grass, winding in and
out amongst brambles and patches of yellow-flaming gorse. The day was
still even at this height; and when, far away, a field of long grass
under a stray wind bent from edge to edge with the swift motion of
running water, it took them both by surprise. And they met no one. They
seemed to ride in the morning of a new clean world. They rose higher on
to Duncton Down, and then the girl spoke.

"So this is your last day here."

He gazed about him out towards the sea, eastwards down the slope to the
dark trees of Arundel, backwards over the weald to the high ridge of
Blackdown.

"I shall look back upon it."

"Yes," she said. "It's a day to look back upon."

She ran over in her mind the days of this last month since he had come to
the inn at Great Beeding and friends of her family had written to her
parents of his coming. "It's the most perfect of all your days here. I am
glad. I want you to carry back with you good memories of our Sussex."