We lay back against the cushions. We acted like conspirators—it was difficult to tell why. The surprise of meeting her thus suddenly had deprived me of words. It must have been the same with her; we clasped hands in silence.

“I had to see you—had to speak to you.”

She was panting—almost crying.

“Of course. Why not? It was foolish to go on the way we were going.”

“Yes, foolish and heartbreaking. It wasn’t as though we were wanting to do anything wicked—only to meet one another, as we used to.”

Her voice trailed off into a little shivering sob; she flickered her eye-lids to prevent the tears from gathering.

“Ruthie, you mustn’t carry on so.” Then, “What has he done to you?” I asked fiercely. “You’re afraid.”

“He’s guessed.”

“Guessed what?”

“What you never knew.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I can’t tell you. If you’d guessed, it might have made all the difference.”

I did not dare to speak—her whisper was so ashamed. Her hand was hot in mine. She withdrew it. When I leant over her she shuddered, just as the trees had done when they knew the rain was coming, as though I were a thing to her both sweet and dreadful. She took my face between her hands, and yet shrank back from me. She delighted in and feared the thing she was doing.

The rain volleyed against the carriage, shutting us in as with a tightly drawn curtain; yet, did I look up, through the gray mist the tepid gold of the sun was shining.

“Ruthie, it seems almost too good to be true that we’re alone at last together—to have you all to myself.”

“Did you ever want me, Dannie?”

“Did I ever want you!”

“But as much as you wanted her?”

“Differently, yes.”

“You poor boy. And you didn’t get either of us.”

“Couldn’t be helped, Ruthie. That’s life—to be always wanting and never getting. But I have you now and, perhaps, one day——”

“But how can you? She’s married.”

“One can’t tell. Things come unexpectedly. I didn’t expect half-an-hour ago that I’d be with you.”

She fell to asking me little stabbing questions. When I only answered her vaguely, “Don’t let’s start with secrets,” she implored me.

“But it’s five years—there’s so much to explain.”

“Yes—on both sides.”

“You seemed—seemed to dislike him,” I said. “I never understood——”

She took me up quickly. “Nor did I. Don’t let’s talk about it—not yet, Dante.”

So I told her about my doings, the book I was writing and the little daily round at Woadley; and then I told her of why I had quarreled with my father.

“But he let me marry Halloway, and you’ve never——” I laughed. “Ah, but no matter what Halloway did as a bachelor, he was discreet when it came to marriage.”

She drew me forward to the light; doubt was in her eyes. “But you—you’re unhappy too.”

“I’ve gained everything I played for; I played to lose.”

“Everything?”

“I didn’t deserve Vi. And I didn’t deserve you; if I had, I shouldn’t have lost you.”

Not until I had replied did she realize how much she had told me. She was not happy! I wanted to ask her questions, so many questions—questions which I had no right to ask, nor she to answer.

“And you—you have no children?”

She hesitated. “No.”

I rubbed the damp from the panes. We were in Stoke Newington. The storm was over; streets and roof-tops shone as with liquid fire. Children going home from school, were laughing and playing. They might have been myself and Ruthie of years ago.

“They won’t see me,” I warned her.

“Who?”

“Folks at Pope Lane.”

“They’re not there. Only Hetty’s left to take care of the house. They’ve gone away for a few days.”

“Then I can see it all again. We can walk in the garden together and pretend that things are exactly as they were.”

“Oh, Dannie!” she cried. “I can call you Dannie, can’t I?”

Time slipped away. She was my little sister now—no longer Lady Halloway. At the posts before the passage we alighted—that was the first news the coachman had of whom he had been driving. We went slowly up the lane, where the shadows of the limes groped like tentacles fingering the sunshine. When I felt beneath the creepers and the bell jangled faintly, Ruthita clutched my arm, attempting to appear bold.

Hetty stared at us. “Well, I’ll be blowed!”

We pushed by her smiling, assuring her that we had no objection. Not until we had rounded the house, did I hear the rattle of the door closing.

Nothing ever changed in that walled-in garden. Flowers grew in the same places—crocuses, daffodils, and hyacinths. Peaches on the wall would soon ripen. Presently sunflowers, like sentinels in gold helmets, would stand in stately line. Pigeons strutted on the slates of houses opposite or wheeled against the sky. There was the window of Ruthita’s bedroom, up to which I had so often called.

The hole, which had been bricked up between the Favarts’ garden, was still discernible. Everything retained its record; only we had changed.

Truants again, stealing an hour together, I listened expectant to hear Hetty call, “Dant-ee. Dant-ee. Bedtime.” The old excitement clutched my heart. Her starched skirt would rustle down the path, and we would run into the gooseberry bushes to hide. I glanced at the study-window. Surely I should see my father seated there, leaning across the desk with his head propped by his arm. Surely that hand of Ruthita’s in my own was growing smaller. I should turn to find a child in a short print-frock, with clusters of ringlets on her shoulders. A shutter in my mind had opened; the past had become present. Ah, but I was no longer anxious to escape. The walled-in garden was all I wanted. I was tired of liberty. I was ready to be commanded. I was willing that others should order my life.

That the illusion might not slip from me, I half shut my eyes. Drip, drip, drip, from eaves and branches! The earth was stirring in the gentle quiet. Through drenched bushes and on the vivid stretch of lawn blackbirds were hopping, delving with their yellow bills. Perhaps I was dwindling into a small boy, just as I had once hoped in the forest that I might suddenly shoot up into manhood. How absurd to believe that I was thirty, and had seen so much of disillusionment! That was all a dream out of which I was waking—I had been here all the time in the narrow confines of the walled-in garden. The old enchantment of familiar sensations stole upon me—I was Dannie Cardover of the Red House; playing tricks with his imagination.

How did it happen? Was it I or was it Ruthie? Her lips were pressing mine. A step came down the path behind us. We sprang apart, laughing softly with reckless joy at our impropriety. Which of us would have thought ten years ago that there would be anything improper in being caught kissing?

Hetty pretended not to have seen us, but her flustered face told its story.

“D’you remember, Hetty, how I once found you doing that to John?”

She writhed her hands under her apron, trying to appear shocked and not to smile. “I remember, Sir Dante; ‘t’aint likely I’d forget.” Then, disregarding me for Ruthita, “I was about to h’arsk your ladyship, whether I should get tea ready.”

Ruthita took her by the hand. “You didn’t talk to me that way once, Hetty. I’m just Ruthie to you always, and Sir Dante is plain Dannie.”

She looked up and met the laughing reproach in our eyes. Her apron went to her face and her bodice commenced to quiver. “Little did I think when I washed and dressed yer little bodies that I should ever see this day,” she sobbed. “It’s breakin’ me ‘eart, that’s what it is, all this quarrelin’. Why shouldn’t I speak to ’im if I wants ter? Why shouldn’t ’e kiss ’is own sister if he likes? Wot’s it matter if all the neighbors was lookin’? There’s too little lovin’ and too little kissin’; that’s wot I say. ‘Tain’t right ter be ashamed o’ bein’ nateral. If it ‘adn’t ’a’ been for bein’ afraid and ashamed, I might ’a’ married John. The nus-girl next door got ’im. There’s allaws been someone a-lookin’ when I was courtin’—there’s been, too little kissin’ in my life, and it’s yer Pa’s fault, if I do say it, wi’ ’is everlastin’ look of ‘Don’t yer do it.’”

“If it’s as bad as all that, Hetty, I’m sure you won’t mind if I——” She made an emotional armful, but between struggling and giggling she allowed me.

We had tea together in the formal dining-room, with its heavy furniture and snug red walls. We made Hetty sit beside us; she protested and was scandalized, but we wouldn’t let her wait. As we talked, the old freedom of happiness came back to Ruthita’s laughter. The mask of enforced prejudices lifted from Hetty’s face. All our conversation was of the past—our adventures, childish mutinies, and punishments. We told Hetty what a tyrant she had been to us. We asked her whether her nightgowns were still of gray flannel. I accused her of being the start of all my naughtiness in the explanation she had given me of how marriages were concocted. It was like putting a wilted flower into water to see the way she picked up and freshened. When she had nothing else to reply, she wagged her head at us, exclaiming, “Oh, my h’eye—what goin’s on! It’s a good thing walls ain’t got ears. W............