are to me."

She was silent, and when she lifted her eyes it was to rest them on the
portrait of his mother. And she seemed to read in the sweet, sad eyes a
question--a question not to be put into words. Chiltern, following her
gaze, did not speak: for a space they looked at the portrait together,
and in silence . . . .

From one end of the house to the other they went, Hugh reviving at the
sight of familiar objects a hundred memories of his childhood; and she
trying to imagine that childhood, so different from her own, passed in
this wonderful place. In the glass cases of the gun room, among the
shining, blue barrels which he had used in all parts of the world, was
the little shotgun his father had had made for him when he was twelve
years old. Hugh locked the door after them when they came out, and smiled
as he put the key in his pocket.

"My destroying days are over," he declared.

Honora put on a linen hat and they took the gravelled path to the
stables, where the horses, one by one, were brought out into the
courtyard for their inspection. In anticipation of this hour there was a
blood bay for Honora, which Chiltern had bought in New York. She gave a
little cry of delight when she saw the horse shining in the sunlight, his
nostrils in the air, his brown eyes clear, his tapering neck patterned
with veins. And then there was the dairy, with the fawn-coloured cows and
calves; and the hillside pastures that ran down to the river, and the
farm lands where the stubbled grain was yellowing. They came back by the
path that wound through the trees and shrubbery bordering the lake to the
walled garden, ablaze in the mellow sunlight with reds and purples,