spell of the hour, she threw back her searching thoughts to the
early days of their tenancy, but at first only to recall a gay
confusion of unpacking, settling, arranging of books, and calling
to each other from remote corners of the house as treasure after
treasure of their habitation revealed itself to them. It was in
this particular connection that she presently recalled a certain
soft afternoon of the previous October, when, passing from the
first rapturous flurry of exploration to a detailed inspection of
the old house, she had pressed (like a novel heroine) a panel
that opened at her touch, on a narrow flight of stairs leading to
an unsuspected flat ledge of the roof--the roof which, from
below, seemed to slope away on all sides too abruptly for any but
practised feet to scale.

The view from this hidden coign was enchanting, and she had flown
down to snatch Ned from his papers and give him the freedom of
her discovery. She remembered still how, standing on the narrow
ledge, he had passed his arm about her while their gaze flew to
the long, tossed horizon-line of the downs, and then dropped
contentedly back to trace the arabesque of yew hedges about the
fish-pond, and the shadow of the cedar on the lawn.

"And now the other way," he had said, gently turning her about
within his arm; and closely pressed to him, she had absorbed,
like some long, satisfying draft, the picture of the gray-walled
court, the squat lions on the gates, and the lime-avenue reaching
up to the highroad under the downs.

It was just then, while they gazed and held each other, that she
had felt his arm relax, and heard a sharp "Hullo!" that made her