"And this is where you've been all these years."

They turned away and began to walk down a long tunnel of
yellowing trees. Benches with mossy feet stood against the
mossy edges of the path, and at its farther end it widened
into a circle about a basin rimmed with stone, in which the
opaque water strewn with leaves looked like a slab of gold-
flecked agate. The path, growing narrower, wound on
circuitously through the woods, between slender serried
trunks twined with ivy. Patches of blue appeared above them
through the dwindling leaves, and presently the trees drew
back and showed the open fields along the river.

They walked on across the fields to the tow-path. In a
curve of the wall some steps led up to a crumbling pavilion
with openings choked with ivy. Anna and Darrow seated
themselves on the bench projecting from the inner wall of
the pavilion and looked across the river at the slopes
divided into blocks of green and fawn-colour, and at the
chalk-tinted village lifting its squat church-tower and grey
roofs against the precisely drawn lines of the landscape.
Anna sat silent, so intensely aware of Darrow's nearness
that there was no surprise in the touch he laid on her hand.
They looked at each other, and he smiled and said: "There
are to be no more obstacles now."

"Obstacles?" The word startled her. "What obstacles?"

"Don't you remember the wording of the telegram that turned
me back last May? 'Unforeseen obstacle': that was it. What