seemingly the element in which she was poised, was space, illimitable space.  She had never been conscious of such vastness, she was abashed by it, she was exalted by it, she knew a moment of acute shame for the pettiness of her personal grievances.  For a time her spirit was disembarrassed of the sorry burden of egotism, and she drank deep from the cup of healing which Nature holds up in such instants of beatitude.  Her eyes were shining pools of peace....

They went on in a profound silence across the plateau, the deep, soft moss bearing them up with a tough elasticity, the sun hot and lusty on their heads, the sweet, strong summer wind swift and loud in their ears, the only sound in all that enchanted upland spot.  Often Sylvia lifted her face to the sky, so close above her, to the clouds moving with a soundless rhythm across the sky; once or twice she turned her head suddenly from one side to the other, to take in all the beauty at one glance, and smiled on it all, a vague, sunny, tender smile.  But she did not speak.

As she trod on the thick moss upspringing under her long, light step, her advance seemed as buoyant as though she stepped from cloud to cloud....

When they reached the other side, and were about to begin the descent into Lydford valley, she lingered still.  She looked down into the valley before her, across to the mountains, and, smiling, with half-shut eyes of supreme satisfaction, she said under her breath:  “It’s Beethoven—­just the blessedness of Beethoven!  The valley is a legato passage, quiet and flowing; those far, up-pricking hills, staccato; and the mountains here, the solemn chords.”

Her companion did not answer.  She looked up at him, inquiringly, thinking that he had not heard her, and found him evidently too deeply moved to speak.  She was startled, almost frightened, almost shocked by the profundity of his gaze upon her.  Her heart stood still and gave a great leap.  Chiefly she was aware of an immense astonishment and incredulity.  An hour before he had never seen her, had never heard of her—­and during that hour she had been barely aware of him, absorbed in herself, indifferent.  How could he in that hour have ...

He looked away and said steadily, “—­and the river is the melody that binds it all together.”

Sylvia drew a great breath of relief.  She had been the victim of some extraordinary hallucination:  “—­with the little brooks for variations on the theme,” she added hastily.

He held aside an encroaching briar, stretching its thorny arm across the path.  “Here’s the beginning of the trail down to Lydford,” he said.  “We will be there in twenty minutes.  It’s almost a straight drop down.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

SYLVIA ASKS HERSELF “WHY NOT?”