So that Aldous Raeburn’s moments of reflection had been constantly mixed with struggle of different kinds.  And the particular point of view where he stood on this September evening had been often associated in his memory with flashes of self-realisation which were, on the whole, more of a torment to him than a joy.  If he had not been Aldous Raeburn, or any other person, tied to a particular individuality, with a particular place and label in the world, the task of the analytic mind, in face of the spectacle of what is, would have been a more possible one!—­so it had often seemed to him.

But to-night all this cumbering consciousness, all these self-made doubts and worries, had for the moment dropped clean away!  A transfigured man it was that lingered at the old spot—­a man once more young, divining with enchantment the approach of passion, feeling at last through all his being the ecstasy of a self-surrender, long missed, long hungered for.

Six weeks was it since he had first seen her—­this tall, straight, Marcella Boyce?  He shut his eyes impatiently against the disturbing golds and purples of the sunset, and tried to see her again as she had walked beside him across the church fields, in that thin black dress, with, the shadow of the hat across her brow and eyes—­the small white teeth flashing as she talked and smiled, the hand so ready with its gesture, so restless, so alive!  What a presence—­how absorbing, troubling, preoccupying!  No one in her company could forget her—­nay, could fail to observe her.  What ease and daring, and yet no hardness with it—­rather deep on deep of womanly weakness, softness, passion, beneath it all!

How straight she had flung her questions at him!—­her most awkward embarrassing questions.  What other woman would have dared such candour—­unless perhaps as a stroke of fine art—­he had known women indeed who could have done it so.  But where could be the art, the policy, he asked himself indignantly, in the sudden outburst of a young girl pleading with her companion’s sense of truth and good feeling in behalf of those nearest to her?

As to her dilemma itself, in his excitement he thought of it with nothing but the purest pleasure!  She had let him see that she did not expect him to be able to do much for her, though she was ready to believe him her friend.  Ah well—­he drew a long breath.  For once, Raeburn, strange compound that he was of the man of rank and the philosopher, remembered his own social power and position with an exultant satisfaction.  No doubt Dick Boyce had misbehaved himself badly—­the strength of Lord Maxwell’s feeling was sufficient proof thereof.  No doubt the “county,” as Raeburn himself knew, in some detail, were disposed to leave Mellor Park severely alone.  What of that?  Was it for nothing that the Maxwells had been for generations at the head of the “county,” i.e. of that circle of neighbouring families connected by the ties of ancestral friendship, or of intermarriage, on whom in this purely agricultural and rural district the social pleasure and comfort of Miss Boyce and her mother must depend?