Isabel Bretherton was about to become a great actress,--Undine had found her soul! It seemed to him, as he lay there buried in the ling, that during the past three weeks he had lived through a whole drama of feeling--a drama which had its beginning, its complications, its climax.

While it had been going on he had been only half-conscious of its bearings, half-conscious of himself.

Wallace's letter had made him sensible of the situation, as it concerned himself, with a decisive sharpness and completeness.

There was no possibility of any further self-delusion: the last defences were overcome, the last veil between himself and the pursuing force which had overtaken him had fallen, and Kendal, with a shiver of pain, found himself looking straight into the wide, hungry eyes of Love! Oh, was this love,--this sore desire, this dumb craving, this restlessness of the whole being?
The bees hummed among the heather, every now and then a little brown-streaked lizard rustled faintly beside him, a pair of kingfishers flashed across the pond.

But he saw and heard nothing, responsive as every sense in him commonly was to the details of the wild life about him.