a gentle smile. 'Anyhow,' she said, 'it is simply too delightful to know that you really are here at last. It must seem strange to you at first, and there are so many things to talk over—such a lot to tell. I want to hear all your plans. You'll get used to us after a bit, and there are lots of nice people in the neighbourhood who are dying to meet you.'
Her brother felt inclined to explain that he had no wish to interfere with their 'dying '; but, instead, he returned her smile. 'I'm a poor hand at meeting people, I'm afraid,' he said. 'I'm not as sociable as I might be.'
'But you'll get over that. Of course, living so long in the backwoods makes one unsociable. But we'll try and make you happy and comfortable. You have no idea how very, very glad I am that you've come home.'
Paul believed her. He leaned over and patted her hand, and she smiled frankly and sweetly in his face. She was a very shadowy sort of personality, he felt. If he blew hard she might blow away altogether, or disappear like a soap-bubble.
'I'm glad too, of course,' he replied. 'Only at my age, you know, it's not easy to tackle new habits.'
'No one could take you for a day more than thirty-five,' she said with truth; 'so that shall be our own little private secret. You look quite absurdly young.'
They laughed together easily and naturally. Paul felt more at home and soothed than he had thought possible. It had not been in the least formidable after all, and for the first time in his life he knew a little of that enervating kind of happiness that comes from being made a fuss of. As there was still a considerable interval before tea, they left their chairs and strolled through the garden, and as they went, the talk turned upon the past, and his sister spoke of Dick and of all he had meant to do in the world, had he lived. Paul heard the details of his sudden death for the first time. Her voice and manner were evidence of the melancholy she still felt, but her brother's heart was deeply stirred; he asked for all the particulars he had so often wondered about, and in her quiet, soothing tone, tinged now with tender sadness, she supplied the information. Clearly she had never arisen from the blow. She had worshipped Dick without understanding him.
'Death always frightens me, I think,' she said with a faint smile. 'I try not to think about it.'
She passed on to speak of the children, and told him how difficult she found it to cope with them—she suffered from frequent headaches and could not endure noise—and how she hoped when they were a little older to be more with them. Mademoiselle Fleury, meanwhile, was such an excellent woman and was teaching them all they should know.
'Though, of course, I keep a close eye on them so far as I am able,' she explained, 'and only wish I were stronger.'
They sauntered through the rose-garden and down the neat gravel paths that led to the wilder parts of the grounds where the rhododendron bushes stood in rounded domes and masses. It was very peaceful, very beautiful. He trod softly and carefully. The hush of centuries of cultivation lay over it all. Even the butterflies flew gently, as to the measure of a leisurely dance that deprecated undue animation. Paul caught his thoughts wandering to the open spaces of untamed moorland he had seen from the hill-top. More and more, as his sister's personality revealed itself, he got the impression that she lived enclosed like the wooden cows he had seen from the train, in a little green field, with precise and neatly trimmed borders. Strong emotions, as all other symptoms of plain and vigorous life, she shrank from. There were notice-boards set about her to warn trespassers, stating clearly that she did not wish to be let out. Yet in her way she was true, loving, and sweet—only it was such a conventional way, he felt.
Leaving the world of rhododendron bushes behind them, they came to the beginning of a pine-wood leading to the heather-land beyond. There was a touch of primitive wildness here. The trees grew straight and tall, filling the glade, and a stream ran brawling among their roots.
'This is the Gwyle,' she said, as they entered the shade, 'it was Dick's favourite part of the whole grounds. I rarely come here; it's dark even in summer, and rather damp and draughty, I always think.'
Paul looked about him and drew a long breath. The air was strong with open-air scents of earth and bark and branches. Far overhead the tufted pines swayed, murmuring to the sky; the ground ran away downhill, becoming broken up and uneven; nothing but dark, slender stems rose everywhere about him, like giant seaweeds, he thought, rising from the pools of a deep sea. And the soft wind, moving mysteriously between the shadows and the sunlight, completed the spell. He passed suddenly—willy-nilly, as his nature would have it—into that mood when the simplest things about him turned their faces upwards so that he caught their eyes and their meaning; when the well-known and common things of the world shone out and revealed the infinite. Something in this quiet pine-wood that was mighty, and utterly wonderful, entered his soul, linking him on at a single stroke with the majesty of the great spirit of the earth. What lay behind it? What was its informing spirit? How and where could it link on so intimately with his soul? And could it not be a channel, as he always felt it must be, to the God behind it? Beauty seized him by the throat and made him tremble.
This sudden rush came over him, sea-like. His moods were ever like the sea, some strange touch of colour shifting the entire key. Something, too, made him feel lonely and oppressed. He, who was accustomed to space in bulk—the space the stars and winds live in—had come to this little, parcelled-out place. He felt clipped already. He turned to the shadowy personality beside him, the boyish impulse bursting its way out. After all, she was his own sister; he could reveal himself to no one if not to her.
'By Gosh, Margaret,' he cried, 'this is the real thing. This wood must be alive and haunted just as the James Bay forests are. It's simply full of wonder.' 'It's the Gwyle wood,' she said quietly. 'It's usually rather damp. But Dick loved it.'
Her brother hardly heard what she said. 'Listen,' he said in a hushed tone; 'do you hear the wind up there aloft? The trees are talking. The wood is full of whispers. There's no sound in the world like that murmur of a soft breeze in pine branches. It's like the old gods sighing, which only their true worshippers hear! Isn't it fine and melancholy? Margaret, d'you know, it goes through me like a fever.'
His sister stopped and stared at him. She wore a little frightened expression. His sudden enthusiasm puzzled her evidently.
'It's the Gwyle wood,' she repeated mechanically. 'It's very pretty, I think. Dick always thought so too.'
Her brother, surprised at his own rush of ready words, and already ashamed of the impulse that had prompted him to reveal himself, fell into silence.
'Nature excites me sometimesI he said presently. 'I suppose it's because I've known nothing else.'
'That's quite natural, I'm sure, Paul dear,' she rejoined, turning to lead the way back to the sunshine of the open garden; 'it's very pretty; I love it too. But it rather alarms me, I think, sometimes.' 'Perhaps the natural tendency in solitude is to personify nature, and make it take the place of men and women. It has become a profound need of my being certainly.' He spoke more quietly, chilled by her utter absence of comprehension.
'In its place I think it is ever so nice. But, Paul, you surprise me. I had no idea you were clever like that.' She was perfectly sincere in what she said.
Her brother blushed like a boy. 'It's my foolishness, I suppose, Margaret,' he said with a shy laugh. 'I am certainly not clever.'
'Anyhow, you can be foolish or clever here to your heart's content. You must use the place as though it were your own exactly.'
'Thank you, Margaret.'
'Only I don't think I quite understand all those things,' she added vaguely after a pause. 'Nixie talks rather like that. She has all
