From that hour Lady Mary began to face the future as a creditor. Her coming days with Peter were numbered and enjoyed as the reward of her sacrifice.

Yet another month slipped away. The year was now at the full of the first green, and London roared at the height of the season. Peter began to be much oppressed with the social rush. Much of it he now saw as mere noise and hurry. He read steadily in the morning, for he still intended seriously to be called to the Bar. In the afternoon he rode or went for long solitary journeys on the river. An evening seldom passed without meeting Lady Mary. They frankly exchanged plans, and schemed for snatches of conversation in crowded places.

At this time they were opportunely invited to leave the hurry of London for a few days in Norfolk. A friend of Haversham had got together at Wroxham a fleet of wherries. Peter and Lady Mary joined the same boat for their last unclouded days together. Only Lady Mary knew how precious and irrevocable they were. For Peter they were slow days of agreeable idleness, as they glided from reach to reach of the quietest country in the world. Always there was the same circle of sky, with an idle mill and rows of grey-green[Pg 246] sedges; the quiet lapping of water and plod of the quanting. Tiny villages dropped past them, with square towers and clusters of small buildings. Upon the third evening of the cruise, Lady Mary picked up some London letters at Potter Heigham. One was from Lord Wenderby. She opened it and read:

    "Lady Mary,—I hope you will not regard this as a breach of our contract. Things are moving quickly in the Cabinet. I must decide at once to stay or go. I can wait for you six days. If you cannot now help me to break with my ties and interests of the moment I must put away our vision of the future.

    "I saw you in the Park the other day. I cannot hope you will ever be my wife. Believe that I wish you all the happiness of your heart.

    "Wenderby."

Lady Mary answered at once. She told Wenderby to come for his answer on her return to London. Meantime, if he needed to know her mind, let him believe all that he wished.

Now she had only two days. She decided to tell Peter in London when they returned. Here she would part from him without a destroying word.

The last evening of the cruise was warm with a breeze from the land to the sea, enough for sailing. Peter and Lady Mary sat, after an early dinner, together on deck. Laughter came from the drawing-room below—a London [Pg 247]drawing-room planted in a wilderness of marsh and water. Sunset was burning itself out. Light was flung upon miles of water, making of the country about them a glimmering palette. The mill on the horizon was derelict, standing black and crude, an eyeless giant, blind to the colour of earth and sky.

Merriment swelled below them. A clever musician parodied the latest phase of a modern French composer.

"This," said Peter with a sardonic gesture at the people below, "is a return to Nature."

"You are more scathing than you know," answered Lady Mary with a smile. "You are listening to a burlesque of the latest thing in music, written in the scale of the Opopo islanders. The Opopo islanders can only count up to five. We are determined to be primitive."

"I should like to sail away into all that," said Peter, waving his arm vaguely at the sunset.

Lady Mary caught at the idea.

"Can you sail?" she asked.

"Pretty fair," said Peter.

"Then why not?"

Lady Mary pointed to the dinghy beneath them. The mast was shipped, and the sail folded.

"Will you come?" asked Peter.

"It is our last evening."

Peter did not hear the sorrow of her phrase.

"Our last evening of the simple life," he laughed. He climbed down, and held the ladder firm.

[Pg 248]

"How are you for wraps?" he called. "It is going to be colder later. This breeze will freshen."

Lady Mary smiled at his expert way.

"Where," she inquired, "did you learn all this?"

"I learned it with Antony. We did this sort of thing at Oxford."

The reference to her brother brought Lady Mary again in view of her sacrifice. She shivered and was silent as Peter rowed softly out into the stream, and spread the tiny sail. The breeze caught it, and the little boat leaned over, hesitated, and swung quickly across the river. The air freshened upon their faces. They dropped almost in a moment away from the lighted flat, and soon were alone, speeding at ease over the beautiful water.

"Why didn\'t we think of this before?" said Peter happily. He pushed over the tiller. The little boat turned, and the water chuckled under her bows.

"Let me take you into the open. The breeze is beginning to be stiff for this tiny boat; but we can always lower sail if it gets too rough."

"Anything to-night," said Lady Mary.

"I love to hear you say that," Peter sang.

They passed into a wide lake, and were soon far from the shore, which showed now as a dark line picked out here and there with light.

"Anything to-night," Peter echoed the phrase.[Pg 249] "It sounds," he went on, "as if the present mattered more............