It was not more than six hours ago that Aura had looked at Ned's iris, had sat in the dawn with Gwen's head in her lap, yet it seemed to the girl who had never seen death before, who had never before realised what Love meant, as if whole Æons had passed over her head. In truth they had; for Love and Death make up Life, since Birth comes to us without remembrance.

The morning had passed by in dizzy haste. There had been much to do, and do quickly, so that her grandfather should not be disturbed by even knowing of the tragedy. This was the more easy of compass, seeing that since his last seizure he had not been coming downstairs till late. So, ere he appeared, there had been time for folk to come and go, time even for old Adam to rake over the gravel disturbed by so many feet. There was no trace, in fact, of what had happened when Aura passed by the spot on her way to the hills. Parkinson's persistent hysterics had been the most troublesome factor in the problem of concealment, but Martha had at last, losing patience, locked her away in one of the cottage bedrooms, and left her there with the callous remark, "She'll come round by herself, and if she don't, 'oo cares?"

Who, indeed, did care about anything? Martha and Adam went about their work as usual; her grandfather knew nothing; even Ted was away.

Aura felt terribly lonely for the first time in her life; the more so because it seemed to her as if part of her very self had rebelled against that other self which, for one-and-twenty years, had lived such a frank, clear life. For all those years she had carried no burden; but now Love and Death claimed to come with her. She could not separate them even in her thoughts. One seemed to her destruction of the body, the other destruction of the mind.

So when leisure became hers at last she took up the thread of life where it had been broken by the intrusion into it of Gwen's death, and started to climb the hills, as she would have done at dawn. It was her natural instinct always. Other girls might shut themselves up in their rooms to think, might sit with their feet on the fender and dream. She had to go out, to feel the fresh breeze on her face, before her mind would work at all.

As she sat on the rocky sheep shelter, whither her feet had taken her almost unconsciously, since it was her favourite outlook, the winter sun beat down on her fiercely, warming her through to the heart. She could feel her very veins pulsing; their rhythm seemed almost to sing in her ears.

How warm it was! but in the shadows behind the big boulders--ay! and in the tiny shade of each blade of grass, each twig of bracken, the frost still lingered white, for the air was freeezing.

Sunshine and frost! Fire and ice!

That was exactly what she felt like herself! She was half fire, half ice; for a fierce virginity of mind fought desperately against the intrusion of that glad new impulse of self-surrender she had felt when she saw Ned's iris.

That, she supposed, was Love; but what was that sort of love worth if it brought death with it to--to herself--to her mind?

She felt indescribably smirched and stained. As she glanced at the fresh white serge skirt she was wearing she seemed to see on it still that crimson blood. It was horrible! It would be there always for her, scarlet as sin, no matter how white as wool it seemed to others.

Poor Gwen! That was the end of it all. She had, no doubt, yielded to Love. Had she had any terror of it at first? Had she also felt the degradation of it?

So, as she sat, more dreaming than thinking, a voice called her. She started to her feet, remembering in a flash that other man's voice which had called "Gwen" in that very place--the man whom she had called coward--whom she had smitten with the lily she held.

It was not an opportune moment for Ned Blackborough, who, having come over to Cwmfaernog with congratulations, had, after hearing from Martha of the tragedy, followed the girl straight to her favourite outlook with the sort of instinctive knowledge of what she would do, which he had always seemed to possess. At the present moment this was in itself an offence to Aura. What right had he to pry into her mind?

"What is wrong?" he asked, checked in his quick sympathy by the expression on her face. Another offence, since what right had he to know anything was wrong.

"Nothing," she answered curtly; "only I came here for quiet and it seems as if I am not to have it!"

He stared at her for a second; then, with a shrug of the shoulders, turned to go, thereby bringing to her a pang of remorse; since when had he not been courteous, not been kind?

His quick return, therefore, and the reckless obstinacy which showed on his face relieved her.

"A cat may look at a king, Miss Graham," he said coolly. "I came to say I was sorry. I am. And as I fail to see that your birthday has any monopoly over New Year's Day, I will wish you many happy returns of the latter. May your temper never grow worse."

She had to smile. The sudden outburst of truth was so like Ned when anything occurred to ruffle or disarrange the smooth covering of convention.

"Thank you," she replied quite frankly, feeling curiously at her ease; "I did not mean to be rude, but----"

"I know," he said simply, and paused. And she knew so well that he knew, that, though her lip quivered for a second she said no more. There was no need to say more.

It was so curious to have him sitting there beside her. Now that he had come all the trouble had gone; she was once more absolutely at her ease.

"And thanks also for the iris," she said after a pause, feeling glad to escape from the tragedies of life. "It is jolly; but I wish you hadn't dug the poor thing up."

"I did not dig it up," he replied coolly.

"You didn't--then how----"

"I wired to Covent Garden for another, and it came down in charge of such a superior person that I almost had to ask him to dine; so 'the most beautiful thing in the most beautiful place in the world' remains beside the sphinx as----" he paused.

"As what?" she asked.

He had come half-prepared to speak of his love, and there was about her face to-day a curious half-forlorn puzzled look which made him feel inclined to take her in his arms and kiss it away--"As a remembrance of you, naturally," he replied.

She sat down on the nearest stone feeling just a little dizzy, and clasping her hands across her knees stared out at the pale blue misty valley, and the pale blue winter sky beyond.

"But why should you want something to remember me by?" she said slowly. "I shall always remember you without anything."

Her freedom from conventional cloakings in speech was at all times a trifle disconcerting, and he felt inclined to reply "That is very kind of you," or make some other banal remark of the sort which might bring convention back. Then he cursed himself for a low beast, and followed her unconsciousness as closely as he could.

"Perhaps I wanted to remember the exact words you said," he suggested.

"But you do remember them," she answered aggrievedly; "that is what I complain of. You remember every little thing I say--and it is most uncomfortable. I cannot think why you should."

He took his fate in his hand. "Can't you--I can----. It is because I happen to love you."

She sat still for a second, then turned and looked at him with narrowing eyes. "I don't see what that has to do with it! You knew what I was thinking about the very first time we met, and you could not possibly have been in love with me then."

Her seriousness made him laugh outright. It was the most delicious piece of comedy to be sitting there talking of his love as if it did not belong to him, while his pulses--stay! were they bounding, or had they quieted down to a curious content?

"I am not so sure," he replied gravely. "There is such a thing, you are doubtless aware, as love at first sight."

"Not for sensible people, and I think we are sensible," she argued grudgingly. "I know, at any rate, that I was not in love with you for a long time afterwards."

The whole world seemed to spin round with Ned....

"Then you are--oh! my dear, my dear!" ...

"Please don't!" she cried, hastily drawing back from his outstretched hands; "I hate being touched. Besides that has nothing to do with what I want to find out. Why, from the very beginning, did you always understand? That can have nothing to do with love ... not, at least, with love like Gwen's"--the last sentence came thoughtfully in a lower key.

"But our love will be different, dear," he said almost solemnly. "If you will marry me, Aura, I will try to understand to the very end--so help me God."

She smiled at him brilliantly. "And you would--you couldn't help it! But that is no reason why we should marry. It seems to me we have mixed things up somehow. No! that is no reason at all."

"Perhaps not," he admitted, following her thought. "Then marry me for some other reason, my dear."

She shook her head. "There is only one reason for marriage," she said, with a wisdom born of the untrammelled teaching of Nature, "and if I were to marry you--I should be afraid--yes, Ned! I will tell you the truth because you are certain to understand--I should be afraid of loving you too much. I--I don't want to love like that."

He sat bewildered, his passion dying at the hands of truth. Then he muttered, half to himself, feeling with a rush of shame how far he was from her, how little he really understood her innocence of evil, "Heaven knows why you should--I am a miserable beast--but----. Oh! I hope to God you would, my dear--I hope to God you would!"

"Why?" she asked calmly, and he had no answer ready. So he harked back after a while to a lower level.

"That is the most original reason for refusing a man I ever heard," he said whimsically. "Have you any others of the same sort?"

She responded instantly to his mood. "Plenty!" she replied cheerfully. "To begin with, you are far too rich. I am only just beginning to realise how I should hate to have money--besides it is wrong, you know."

"I don't know," he said dryly; "but it is quite easy to divest oneself of money. I never find the slightest difficulty in getting rid of it--so don't let that stand in your way."

It was her turn to laugh--a soft, little laugh with a hint of reproof in it.

"I don't expect you do. Ted is always saying you are reckless. Then there is grandfather; you know he doesn't like you half so much as he likes Ted----"

"The deuce he doesn't!" assented Ned, his sudden pang of jealousy softened by his sense of the comic; "but you are surely not going to marry Ted in order to please your grandfather?"

She looked at him disapprovingly, "I might marry some one worse; Ted is a dear."

He felt exasperated. "Yes! he is an uncommonly good fellow; but--you don't happen to love him. And you do--at least I think you do"--he felt that certainty might overpower his self-control--"love me."

She took no notice of this, but went on argumentatively.

"Then I don't think I like marriage in your rank of life. With a poor man, and lots of work and trouble and children, it would be very interesting; but--look at Lady Smith-Biggs! I don't know what Sir Joseph is like, of course, but she looks as if she led a dull life."

"Very!" assented Ned, back to smiles once more. "But I wouldn't, if I were you, take Lady Smith-Biggs' as a test case; there are plenty of marriages----" he paused, feeling it would be difficult with Aura's standard to adduce many examples; but then he was prepared to chuck everything, and go forth with sandal shoon into the wilderness if need be. Yes! she was right. It was hardly marriage that he wanted after all.

So for a time they sat and looked out over the pale blue mists behind which the hills loomed large, seeming to lose themselves in the pale blue sky.

"There must be something better," said the girl at last. "Oh, Ned! there is something better!"

"Better than love," he echoed; "perhaps than some loves; not better than mine!"

"Don't people always say that? Perhaps he said it to Gwen----"

"Child!" he said swiftly, "don't think of that--that was not love."

"And it was not marriage either," she replied softly; "but what you mean has nothing to do with what is called love, with what is called marriage--that is what I mean too."

He shook his head. "That is too fine for me, Aura! I want you. I am not satisfied without you."

He was so close to her that he could lay his hand on hers.

"S--sh!" she said swiftly, laying her other hand on his so as to detain it. "Listen!"

Just below them, in a sheltered corrie, grew a great holly-tree covered with berries that glowed scarlet against the distant blue. On its topmost twig, with flaming breast yellowed by the exceeding brilliance of those blood-red berries, a robin had settled itself to sing. And it sang.

Of what? Of the berries beneath its feet? Of its distant mate? Or out of the gladness of its heart of life because of the Beginning it did not remember, of the End it did not know?

Who can say? but it sang. And as it sang those two sat hand in hand, forgetful even of what humanity calls love. Forgetful of all things except that they also were dreaming the Dream of Life.

"Did I not say so?" she cried exultantly when the song had ceased. "Did I not tell you there was something better? You had forgotten me and I had forgotten you, yet we were happy."

"Because we were hand-clasped," he answered swiftly, "because I touched you, and you touched me."

She drew her hands away and a flush came to her face.

"But don't you feel afraid--as I do? Don't you want to keep what you love apart--to keep it safe--even from yourself?"

Did he not? Was it not only this which kept him back from taking her in his arms and kissing her to the knowledge of what a man's love must be.

"Yes!" he said unsteadily, constrained to truth by hers. "But there is a love which does not stain. I'll give it you--if I can."

She looked at him with a vain regret in her eyes. "You couldn't if we were married, and I couldn't anyhow. Ah no, Ned! It would spoil it all."

"Spoil what?" he asked roughly, for he began to feel himself worsted for the time.

"The something better," she replied gaily, "let us wait for that. I really don't want to marry you, Ned. I should hate it. I knew that when I saw your iris."

"Then I wish I hadn't climbed up to put it on your window-sill and wricked my bad arm into the bargain," he said sullenly.

Her face grew grave. "Did you climb up; that was very wrong."

"Was it?" he replied shrugging his shoulders; "but I'm afraid I'm a very wrong person altogether. At the present moment I feel inclined to--to--but what is the use--you wouldn't understand. Aura! for the last time, will you marry me?"

"No, Ned, I won't."

"Then that ends it," he said recklessly. "So good-bye."

She paled a little.

"Must you go?"

"One of us must," he replied, caught in fresh hope, "unless you change your mind."

"That is impossible--but you will come back, won't you?"

He looked at her full of impatience, yet full of tenderness.

"I believe I ought to say that I won't, but----" Then he held out his hand, "I understand--apart from everything else in the world--what this love of ours--" her hand trembled in his for a second, "means to us--both. I will go away for--yes! for two months, and give you time to think. Then I will come back. Good-bye, my dear. I can only say it once more--I love you."

For an instant as he left her she stood still, her lip quivering; then she called to him:

"Come back, please! I want to give you this."

She held out the bunch of winter heliotrope which had been fastened in her coat; its faint scent had been in the air as he had sat beside her holding her hand.

It was too much; the passion he had held back, not unwillingly for so long, mastered him. "This is foolishness," he cried, striding towards her, "you do love me--why can you not say so--you might at least tell the truth."

Something in her face arrested him.

"The truth," she echoed, "I have told you the truth. I think I do love you, and I am sorry, and vexed, and angry." Her clear eyes were looking through his as if she could see into his innermost thought. "But I will not marry you. I am afraid. Do you understand what that means to me? I am afraid of myself, and for you, for you deserve something better."

Suddenly she stooped, kissed the withering flowers she held, dropped them at his feet and was off like a mist wreath down the hill.

He did not attempt to follow her. He simply sat down again on the stone where he had been sitting before, and swore to God that sooner or later he would marry her.

And then he fell to thinking of how once or twice in his life before he had caught a glimpse, as he had just now caught one, of that "something better," beyond the Dream of Life.

Once, when he was a boy watching the trail of silvery bubbles left behind it in the brown stream by a water-rat as it swam. Once again as a young man, when he had paid half a crown for a penny bunch of violets, and something in their sweetness had made him add half a sovereign to their price and go on his way.

Then the present reasserted itself. He could not possibly take this for his answer, he must wait till the shock of Gwen's death had faded, until Aura became accustomed to the idea of her own love for him--for that she did love him he had little doubt. It was briefly her love which had frightened her, quaint compound as she was of nature and culture. He would leave her to think it out for two months. During that time he also would have time to make up his mind concerning many things. He was becoming dimly conscious that life was resolving itself into the spending of money in order to escape from the responsibilities of having money, into the fighting of money by money.

It would be rather interesting to let the fight go on while he raised no finger to protect his own personal rights; if indeed he had any, which he was beginning to doubt. He and Aura would be as happy--nay! happier without money. Yes! in the one thing worth having, the one thing without which even life itself was not worth having, money had no purchasing power whatever.

"I am only just beginning to realise how I should hate to be rich."

Aura's words came back to him. She need not fear. If she would only consent to marry him, he would chuck everything he possessed!--barring a modest competence of course!--after the sovereigns he had chucked that June morning into the little lochan at the gap.

He had never thought of the hidden money since that day. It had gone clean out of his head. Now, as he stood up to try and locate the exact dip on the hills where it lay, his own words came back to him.

"Neither I nor the world would suffer if I made ducks and drakes of these sovereign remedies."

He seemed to hear the soft whit whitter of the skimming gold and to see the blank look on the faces around him.

There were other ways of getting rid of gold, however, than by chucking it into a pond. You had in this civilised world but to let your neighbour know that you had it in your pocket, and it was sure to go.

So, despite his refusal, with a light laugh he started down the hill.