gesture of surrender, gathered her skirts in one hand, and with the
other raised to her loosened hair she began to descend the hill.

The young man stood still until she had disappeared, smitten by an
inexplicable sense of the fatality of that meeting. Verging upon the
sixth lustrum of his age, he had passed through that vernal period when
the face of every woman of more than ordinary charm suggested
possibilities of the heart's adventure. With him the main business of
life was no longer the seeking of a mate. All books, all arts, all
accomplishments, had ceased to seem merely the accessories and the
handmaidens of love. Yet never in those days of searching and romance
had he been so attracted by a passing face. Beauty alone would have
left him cold. The impression he received was far more rich, an
impression to which the circumstances of the encounter gave a peculiar
emphasis. The adventure seemed a possible keynote of the future, and
there was an element of vague disquiet in his hope that he might meet
her again, an element akin to fear.




CHAPTER II

THE TOWER

Llewellyn Leigh found himself upon the wide stone flagging in front of
the Hall before he awoke to a realisation of another meeting, now
imminent, whose importance was far less conjectural than that upon
which his fancy would fain have lingered.