LITMIR.BIZ

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pointing to her hat, which was full of the spring earth-stars, said laughingly:

      "What ruthless pillage! Do not pick any more; it is wanton waste!"

      "Are you sure you have plenty?" he said. "Why hesitate when there are such millions?"

      "No, no more!" she said. "I feel guilty already!"

      He glanced at the handful he had gathered, and she saw the glance and laughed.

      "You do not know what to do with those you have, and still want more. See, you must tie them in bundles.

      "Show me," he said, and he threw himself down beside her.

      She gathered them up into bundles, and tied them with a long stem of fern, and he tried to do the same, but his hands, white and slender as they were, were not so deft as hers, and he held the huge bundle to her.

      "You must tie it," he said.

      She laughed and put the fern round, but it broke, and the primroses fell in a golden shower over their hands. They both made a grasp at them, and their hands met.

      For a moment Stella laughed, then the laugh died away, for he still held her hand, and the warmth of his grasp seemed stealing upward to her heart. With something like an effort she drew her hand away, and sprang to her feet.

      "I – I must go," she said. "Uncle will wonder where I have gone," and she looked down at the water with almost frightened eagerness.

      "He will know you are here, quite safe," he said. "Wait, do not go this moment. Up there, above our heads, we can see the river stretching away for miles. It is not a step; will you come?"

      She hesitated a moment, then she turned and walked beside him between the trees.

      A step or two, as he said, and they reached a sort of plateau, crowned by a moss-grown rock, in which some rough steps were hewn. He sprang up the steps and reached the top, then bent down and held out his hand.

      Stella hesitated a moment.

      "It will repay your trouble; come," he said, and she put her hand in his and her foot on the first step, and he drew her up beside him.

      "Look!" he said.

      An exclamation of delight broke from Stella's lips.

      "You are not sorry you came?"

      "I did not think it would be so lovely," she said.

      He stood beside her, not looking at the view, but at her dark eyes dilating with dreamy rapture – at her half-parted lips, and the sweet, clear-cut profile presented to him.

      She turned suddenly, and to hide the look of admiration he raised his hand and pointed out the objects in the view.

      "And what is that little house there?" asked Stella.

      "That is one of the lodges," he said.

      "One of the lodges – one of your own lodges, you mean?" she asked.

      He nodded lightly, "Yes."

      "And all this between here and that lodge belongs to you?"

      "No, not an inch," he said, laughing. "To my father."

      "It is a great deal," she said.

      "Too much for one man, you think?" he said, with a smile. "A great many other people think so too. I don't know what you would think if you knew how much we Wyndwards have managed at one time or the other to lay our acquiring grasp on. This is one of our smallest estates," he said, simply.

      Stella looked at the view dreamily.

      "One of the smallest? Yes, I have heard that you are very rich. It must be very nice."

      "I don't know," he said. "You see one cannot tell until one has been poor. I don't think there is anything in it. I don't think one is any the happier. There is always something left to long for."

      She turned her dark eyes on him with a smile of incredulity.

      "What can you possibly have to long for?" she said.

      He looked at her with a strange smile; then suddenly his face grew grave and wistful – almost sad, as it seemed to her.

      "You cannot guess, and I cannot tell you; but believe me that, as I stand here, there is an aching void in my heart, and I do long for something very earnestly."

      The voice was like music, deep and thrilling; she listened and wondered.

      "And you should be so happy," she said, almost unconsciously.

      "Happy!" he echoed, and his dark eyes rested on hers with a strange expression that was half-mocking, half-sad. "Do you know what the poets say?"

      "'Count no man happy till he dies,' do you mean?" said Stella.

      "Yes," he said. "I do not think I know what happiness means. I have been pursuing it all my life; sometimes have been within reach of it but it has always evaded me – always slipped from my grasp. Sometimes I have resolved to let it go – to pursue it no longer; but fate has decreed that man shall always be seeking for the unattainable – that he who once looks upon happiness with the eyes of desire, who stretches out his hands toward her, shall pursue her to the end."

      "And – but surely some get their desire."

      "Some," he said, "to find that the prize is not worth the race they have run for it; to find that they have wearied of it when it is gained; to find that it is no prize at all, but a delusive blank; all dead sea fruit that turns to dust upon the lips."

      "Not all; surely not all!" she murmured, strangely moved by his words.

      "No; not all," he said, with a hidden light in his eyes that she did not see. "To some there comes a moment when they know that happiness – real true happiness – lies just beyond their grasp. And the case of rich men is more to be pitied than all others. What would you say if I told you that it was mine?"

      She looked up at him with a gentle smile, not on her lips but in her eyes.

      "I should say that I was very sorry," she murmured. "I should say that you deserved – " she stopped short, smitten by sudden remembrance of all she had heard of him.

      He filled up the pause with a laugh: a laugh such as she had not heard upon his lips till now.

      "You were right to stop," he said. "If I get all the happiness I deserve – well, no man will envy me."

      "Let us go down now," said Stella, gently; "my uncle – "

      He leapt down, and held up his hand.

      CHAPTER VIII

      Stella put hers into it, but reluctantly, and tried to spring, but her dress caught and she slipped forward.

      She would have fallen but that he was on the alert to save her. Quite simply and naturally he put his arms round her and lifted her down.

      Only for a moment he held her in his embrace, her panting form close to his, her face almost resting on his shoulders, but that moment roused the blood in his fiery heart, and her face went pale.

      "Are you hurt?" he murmured.

      "No, no!" she said, and she slipped out of his arms and stood a little away from him, the color coming and going in her face; it was the first time that any man's arms, save her father's, had ever encircled her.

      "Are you quite sure?" he repeated.

      "Quite," she said, then she laughed. "What would have happened if I had slipped?"

      "You would have sprained your ankle," he said.

      "Sprained my ankle, really?" she repeated, with open eyes.

      "Yes, and I should have had to carry you down to the boat," he said, slowly.

      She looked away from him.

      "I am glad I did not slip."

      "And I," he said, "am – glad also."

      She stooped and picked up the primroses and ran down the slope, her cheeks aflame, a feeling that was something like shame, and yet too full of a strange, indefinable joy to be sullen shame, took possession of her.

      With

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