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Very disposedly we paraded the length of the walk and at her request backed again. This time the child had got the better of his panic, but stood far off and doubting.

“The little fellow’s watching us,” I said. “I wonder if he’d like a ride. ”

“They’re very shy still. Very shy. But, oh, lucky you to be able to see them! Let’s listen. ”

I stopped the machine at once, and the humid stillness, heavy with the scent of box, cloaked us deep. Shears I could hear where some gardener was clipping; a mumble of bees and broken voices that might have been the doves.

“Oh, unkind!” she said weariedly.

“Perhaps they’re only shy
of the motor. The little maid at the window looks tremendously interested. ”

“Yes?” She raised her head. “It was wrong of me to say that. They are really fond of me. It’s the only thing that makes life worth living—when they’re fond of you, isn’t it? I daren’t think what the place would be without them. By the way, is it beautiful?”

“I think it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. ”

“So they all tell me. I can feel it, of course, but that isn’t quite the same thing. ”

“Then have you never?——” I began, but stopped abashed.

“Not since I can remember. It happened when I was only a few months old, they tell me. And yet I must remember something, else how could I dream about colours? I see light in my dreams, and colours, but I never see them. I only hear them just as I do when I’m awake. ”

“It’s difficult to see faces in dreams. Some people can, but most of us haven’t the gift,” I went on, looking up at the window where the child stood all but hidden.

“I’ve heard that too,” she said. “And they tell me that one never sees a dead person’s face in a dream. Is that true?”

“I believe it is—now I come to think of it. ”

“But how is it with yourself—yourself?” The blind eyes turned towards me.

“I have never seen the faces of my dead in any dream,” I answered.

“Then it must be as bad as being blind. ”

The sun had dipped behind the woods and the long shades were possessing the insolent horsemen one by one. I saw the light die from off the top of a glossy-leaved lance and all the brave hard green turn to soft black. The house, accepting another day at end, as it had accepted an hundred thousand gone, seemed to settle deeper into its rest among the shadows.

“Have you ever wanted to?” she said after the silence.

“Very much sometimes,” I replied. The child had left the window as the shadows closed upon it.

“Ah! So’ve I, but I don’t suppose it’s allowed…. Where d’you live?”

“Quite the other side of the county—sixty miles and more, and I must be going back. I’ve come without my big lamp. ”

“But it’s not dark yet. I can feel it. ”

“I’m afraid it will be by the time I get home. Could you lend me some one to set me on my road at first? I’ve utterly lost myself. ”

“I’ll send Madden with you to the cross-roads. We are so out of the world, I don’t wonder you were lost! I’ll guide you round to the front of the house; but you will go slowly, won’t you, till you’re out of the grounds? It isn’t foolish, do you think?”

“I promise you I’ll go like this,” I said, and let the car start herself down the flagged path.

We skirted the left wing of the house, whose elaborately cast lead guttering alone was worth a day’s journey; passed under a great rose-grown gate in the red wall, and so round to the high front of the house which in beauty and stateliness as much excelled the back as that all others I had seen.