Wynifred stood idly at the window.

It was a lovely day—one of those real spring days which we in England so rarely enjoy—perhaps one, perhaps half-a-dozen in the whole year. A brief interlude in the east wind's unfailing rigor; a breathing time when the black shadows leave the land and color begins to dawn over copse and meadow. The sea-ward slopes of the valley were beginning to grow green. The borders of the garden were purple and gold with crocuses, and sweet with violets.

Hilda had yesterday brought in a sumptuous handful of Lent lilies from the woods, lighting up the room like a flash of condensed sunlight. There were countless ripples on the sea, a breath of life and spring in the warm air. The birds were twittering and building, and the long hazel-blooms fell in pale gold and crimson tassels on the pathway. Miss Ellen lay on her sofa, anxiously watching the silent pale girl at the window.

They were alone. Hilda was out riding with Henry Fowler.

Miss Ellen had been watching the clock, wondering how long Wynifred would remain speechless and in the same position if left to herself. When the silence had lasted more than fifty minutes, she felt it unbearable.

"Wynifred, my dear, a penny for your thoughts," said she.

Wyn started violently, and faced slowly round. Her eyes wore a dull look, as if she was not quite fully awake.

"I don't think I was thinking of anything in particular," said she, sitting down listlessly and taking up her work, which lay on a table near. Miss Ellen watched her keenly, as she turned the embroidery this way and that, smoothed it with her hand, threaded a needle with silk as if she felt that some pretence of employment was necessary, but, after five minutes' spasmodic working, let it drop idly in her lap, leaned back in her chair, and again became apathetic.

It was disheartening indeed to watch her.

Miss Ellen recalled the energetic, slender Wynifred of last summer, with her eager, vivid interest in everything, her ready tongue, her gay laugh, her quick fingers.

How could the girl tell at what precise amount of work she would have to stop short? How should she recognise the signs of overfatigue? To spur herself on had been her only care,—to check her cravings for rest and leisure, as something to be crushed down and despised.

Now she was like a clock with damaged works. If you shook her, she would go fitfully for a few minutes, and then relapse into her former lethargy.

Of course, the completeness of her breakdown had been greatly aggravated by her own private unhappiness, and by the terrible trouble of her brother's total inability to stand up against his reverse of fortune. It seemed as if the consciousness of Osmond's utter weakness had sapped all her strength, had struck away her last prop. From such a depth of sickness and depression, she would, naturally take some time to re-ascend. Miss Ellen comforted herself with the thought that her cure must be gradual, but she could not feel that it had yet so much as begun.

Wynifred could not be made to talk on any subject except the sun, the flowers, the chough, the villagers, or some such indifferent theme. To talk about books made her head ache, she said, and she never put pen to paper. Hilda had now and then tried her, by casually leaving writing materials about in the room where she sat; but, alone or in company, she never touched them.

She spoke of no one and asked after no one but Osmond, and of him she would now and then speak, though never mentioning Elsa, or anyone else connected with the episodes preceding her illness.

Miss Ellen watched her daily with a tenderness and penetration which were touching to behold. The whole of her gentle heart went out to the girl, the deepest depth of whose malady she hardly guessed. She had an idea that what was wanted was the sight of some thing or person vividly recalling the trouble, whatever it was, which had made such an impression. She believed that a moment of excitement, even if painful, would break up the dull crust of indifference, and bring relief, even if it should flow in tears. But she had not clue enough to go upon in order to bring such a thing about; and Hilda was profoundly ignorant of her sister's secretly-cherished love-affair.

"Wynifred," said Miss Ellen.

The girl looked up quickly.

"It is such a lovely day, dear; why don't you go for a walk?"

"I did not like to leave you, Miss Willoughby; not that I am very enlivening company."

"You will be much more enlivening if you can bring me news of the primroses beginning to bloom in the woods. Get your hat and be off, bring back a pair of pink cheeks and an appetite, or you won't be admitted."

Wynifred rose slowly and folded her work. Painfully Miss Ellen recalled words that Henry Fowler had spoken last year as he watched the blithe young company out at tea on the terrace:—Elsa, the Allonbys, young Haldane, and Claud Cranmer.

"How those Allonby girls do enjoy themselves!" he had said.

Their enjoyment was infectious, it was so spontaneous, so fresh. The change was acute.

"What is to be done with her?" pondered Miss Willoughby, as the girl went out, apathetically closing the door behind her.

Hardly knowing why, Wynifred chose the road that led inland, along the further side of the valley, to Poole Farm.

Had Miss Ellen only known how inwardly active was the mind that outwardly seemed almost dormant! All yesterday the bells had been clashing from the little church in honor of Elsa's wedding. In fancy the girl had gone through the whole ceremony—had seen Claud attending his friend Percivale to church, in his capacity of best man. To-day it seemed as if the bells were still ringing, ringing on in her head until she felt dizzy and unnerved.

Why could she not expel unwelcome thoughts and order herself back to work, as heretofore? No use. She had taxed her self-control once too often, and stretched it too far. It had snapped. There was no power in her.

"There was a time," she thought, "when I could have saved myself. At the Miles' ball I was comparatively free—I could take an intelligent interest in other things. Why—oh, why was he sent there to force me to begin all over again?"

Lost in reverie, she wandered on until she found herself opposite the spot where Saul Parker had attacked Osmond.

There was a fallen tree lying on the grass at the other side of the lane, and, overcome with many memories, she sat down upon it. Here it was that she and Claud had exchanged their first flash of sympathy, when strolling back to Poole together in the summer twilight. Closing her eyes, she rested her brow on her two hands, as she lived again through the experiences of those days.

What was this strange weight which seemed to make her unable to rise, or to think, or to cast off her abiding depression? Had there really been a time when she, Wynifred, had possessed a mind stored with graceful fancies, and a pen to give them to the world?

That was over for ever now. Her literary career was stopped, she told herself in her despair; and when her money came to an end she must starve, for her capacity for work was gone. Yet all around her was the subtle air of spring, instinct with that vague, indescribable hope and desire which sometimes shakes our very being for five minutes or so, suddenly, on an April day, however prosaic and middle-aged we may be. She did not weep, her trouble was too dull, too chronic for tears.

She sat on, idly gazing at the farm-house windows and at the flight of the building rooks about the tall elms, till a footstep close beside her made her turn her head; and Claud Cranmer stood in the lane, not ten paces from her, his hat in his hand, his eyes fixed on her face.

For a moment his figure and the landscape surrounding it swam before her eyes, and then, in a flash, the woman's dignity and pride sprang up anew in her heart and she was ready to meet him. All the feeling, the force of being which, since her illness, had been in abeyance, started up full-grown in a moment at sight of him. She knew she was alive, for she knew that she suffered—as poignantly, as really as ever; and for the moment she almost hailed the pain with rapture, because it was a sign of life.

She must take his outstretched hand, she must control her voice to speak to him. She was childishly pleased to find that her strength rose with her need—that she could do both quite rationally. She did not rise from her log. As soon as Claud saw that she was conscious of his presence, he came up to her with hand extended, and, in another moment, hers was resting in his hungry clasp.

He was more unnerved than she. His heart seemed beating in his throat, his love and tenderness and shame were all struggling together, so that for a few minutes, he was dumb; the sight of her had been so overpowering.

They had told him not to be shocked—to expect to find her greatly altered; but they had not calculated on the instantaneous effect of his appearance on her. Thin indeed she was—almost wasted—her eyes unnaturally large and hollow. But the expression was as vivid, as fascinating as ever, the color burnt in her cheeks—it was merely an ethereal version of his own Wynifred, inspiring him with an idea of fragility which made him wild with pity.

She spoke first—her own voice, so unlike that of any other woman he had ever known.

"I did not expect to see you," she said. "Are you staying with Mr. Fowler?"

"No. I came down yesterday."

Her hand, which seemed so small—like nothing, as it lay in his own—was gently withdrawn.

"You have brought spring weather with you," said she, quietly.

"It is beautiful to-day," he answered, neither knowing nor caring what he said. "May I sit down and talk a—a little? It is—it is—a long time since I saw you last."

He seated himself beside her on the log, hoping that the beating of his heart was not loud enough for her to overhear. He could hardly realize that he had accomplished so much—that they were seated, at last, together, "With never a third, but each by each as each knew well,"—and with a future made up of a few moments—a present so intensified that it blotted out all past experience; a kind of foretaste of the "everlasting minute" of immortality, such as is now and then granted to the time-encumbered soul.

Whether the pause, the hush which was the prelude to the drama, lasted one moment or ten he could not say. He was conscious, presently, of an uneasy stirring of the girl at his side.

"I think I ought to be walking home," said she.

"Not yet; I have not half enjoyed the view," said he, decidedly.

"Oh, please do not disturb yourself," she faltered, breathlessly, as she made a movement to rise, "I can go home alone—I would rather——"

"So you told me the last time we parted, and, like a fool and a coward, I let you go. I am wiser now. You must stay."

She had lifted up her gloves to put them on. Taking her hands in his, he gently pulled away the gloves, and obliged her to resume her seat. She began to tremble.

"Mr. Cranmer—you must let me go. I—am not strong yet—I cannot bear it. Oh, please go and leave me. I cannot talk to you."

The words were wrung from her. Feebly she strove to draw her hands out of his warm clasp, but he held them firmly.

"The reason I followed you here was because they told me you would refuse to see me if you could," he said calmly. He had regained his composure now, and his quiet manner soothed her. "I was quite determined to see you. I came down to Edge for that reason alone. It is merely a question of time. If you will not listen to me to-day, you must to-morrow. I have something which I will say to you. Choose when you will hear it."

"Is it—is it about Osmond?" she said, feverishly.

"About Osmond? No, it has nothing to do with him," said Claud, rather resentfully. "It is only about me."

She was silent for a long moment, gazing straight before her with a strange, wild excitement growing in her heart. At last, with one final effort at self-mastery, she deliberately lifted her eyes to his. "About you?" she said faintly.

"About you and me," he answered.

She made an ineffectual struggle, half-rose, looked this way and that, as if for flight, then sank back again into her place, in absolute surrender.

"Say it," she whispered, almost inaudibly.

"Wynifred," he said, his voice taking from his emotion a thrill which she felt in the innermost recesses of her heart. "I have a confession to make to you—a confession of fraud. Pity me. Perhaps the confession will deprive me of your friendship for ever; but I must speak. There is something in my possession which belongs to you—it has been yours for nearly a year. You ought to have had it long ago. I have kept it back from you all these months. Do you think you can forgive me?"

She gazed at him uncomprehending.

"Something of mine? A letter?" said she.

"No, not a letter." It was exquisite, this interview; he could have prayed to prolong it for weeks. He held her attention now, as well as her hands; he felt inclined to be deliberate. "It is worth nothing, or very little, this thing in question," he went on. "You may not care for it—you may utterly decline to have it—you may tell me that it is worthless in your eyes, and throw it back to me in scorn. But, since it is yours, I feel that I must just lay it before you, to take or leave. It has been yours for so long, that I think that very fact has made it rather less good-for-nothing, and, Wynifred, it has in it the capacity for growth. If you would take it and keep it, there is no telling what you might make of it."

"I do not understand," cried Wynifred.

"You do not understand why your own was not given to you before?" he asked, softly. "That is the shameful part of the story. I kept it back only for mean and contemptible reasons; because I was afraid to give it absolutely into your keeping, not knowing certainly whether you would care to have it. But I have been shown that this was not honest. Whether you will have it or not, my dearest, I must show my heart to you, I must implore you to take it, to forgive its imperfections, to count as its one merit that it is all your own. It is myself, my beloved, who am at your feet. My life, my hopes, my love, are all yours, and have been for so long.... Can you forget that I withheld them when they were not mine to keep? Can you forgive that they are so poor, so imperfect, so unworthy?"

She had given a little cry when first the meaning of his riddle became apparent to her, and, snatching away one hand, had covered her face with it.

All the Irish fervor and poetry of Claud's nature was kindled. He was no backward lover,—the words rushed to his lips, he knew not how.

Determinedly he put his arm round his love as she sat, speaking with his lips close to her ear.

"Wyn," he said, with that sweetness of voice and manner which had first won her heart. "Wyn, I'll give you no option. You are mine; you know it. I deserve punishment; but don't punish me, dear, for I tell you you can't be happy without me, any more than I without you. Is that presumption? I think not,—I believe it's insight. There are times, you know, when one seems to push away all the manners and customs of the day, and my heart just cries out to yours that we are made for one another. My own, just look at me a minute, and tell me if that isn't so."

Drawing her closer to him, he gently pulled away her hand from her eyes and made her look at him.

"Is it true? Dare you contradict me, sweetheart?" he said, tenderly. "Don't you belong to me?"

The authoress could find no eloquent reply. No words would obey the bidding of her feelings. With her head at rest at last on her lover's heart, like the veriest bread-and-butter miss, she could only murmur a bald, bare, "Yes,—I—I think so."

"You think so, do you, my love?" he said, ecstatically. "Tell me what makes you think so, then, sweet?"

She closed her eyes, and, lifting her arm, she laid it round his neck with a sigh of bliss.

"I—can't," said she, weakly.

It sounds very inadequate, but the fact remains that this entire want of vocabulary in the usually self-possessed and ready Wynifred was the highest possible charm in the eyes of her lover. To his unutterable delight, he found that his very loftiest dream was realised. He himself was the great want of the girl's life. He comforted her. She was able at once to let go the burden of care and sorrow she had borne so long, and to rest herself utterly in his love. The expression on her white face was that of perfect rest. Her soul had found its true goal. Claud and she were in the centre of the labyrinth at last. Above them on the hillside stood the grey farm, still and lonely in the sunlight as it had stood for more than three centuries. Never had it looked on purer happiness than that of these two obscure and poorly-endowed mortals who yet felt themselves rich indeed in the consciousness of mutual sympathy.

The air was musical with streams, the stir of spring mixed subtly with their joy. This betrothal needed no pomp of circumstance to enhance its perfection. To Claud and Wynifred to be together was to be blessed.