“That’s not a light burning, is it?” Helen asked anxiously.

“It’s the sun,” said St. John.  The upper windows had each a spot of gold on them.

“I was afraid it was my husband, still reading Greek,” she said.  “All this time he’s been editing Pindar.”

They passed through the town and turned up the steep road, which was perfectly clear, though still unbordered by shadows.  Partly because they were tired, and partly because the early light subdued them, they scarcely spoke, but breathed in the delicious fresh air, which seemed to belong to a different state of life from the air at midday.  When they came to the high yellow wall, where the lane turned off from the road, Helen was for dismissing the two young men.

“You’ve come far enough,” she said.  “Go back to bed.”

But they seemed unwilling to move.

“Let’s sit down a moment,” said Hewet.  He spread his coat on the ground.  “Let’s sit down and consider.”  They sat down and looked out over the bay; it was very still, the sea was rippling faintly, and lines of green and blue were beginning to stripe it.  There were no sailing boats as yet, but a steamer was anchored in the bay, looking very ghostly in the mist; it gave one unearthly cry, and then all was silent.

Rachel occupied herself in collecting one grey stone after another and building them into a little cairn; she did it very quietly and carefully.

“And so you’ve changed your view of life, Rachel?” said Helen.

Rachel added another stone and yawned.  “I don’t remember,” she said, “I feel like a fish at the bottom of the sea.”  She yawned again.  None of these people possessed any power to frighten her out here in the dawn, and she felt perfectly familiar even with Mr. Hirst.

“My brain, on the contrary,” said Hirst, “is in a condition of abnormal activity.”  He sat in his favourite position with his arms binding his legs together and his chin resting on the top of his knees.  “I see through everything—­absolutely everything.  Life has no more mysteries for me.”  He spoke with conviction, but did not appear to wish for an answer.  Near though they sat, and familiar though they felt, they seemed mere shadows to each other.

“And all those people down there going to sleep,” Hewet began dreamily, “thinking such different things,—­Miss Warrington, I suppose, is now on her knees; the Elliots are a little startled, it’s not often they get out of breath, and they want to get to sleep as quickly as possible; then there’s the poor lean young man who danced all night with Evelyn; he’s putting his flower in water and asking himself, ’Is this love?’—­and poor old Perrott, I daresay, can’t get to sleep at all, and is reading his favourite Greek book to console himself—­and the others—­no, Hirst,” he wound up, “I don’t find it simple at all.”

“I have a key,” said Hirst cryptically.  His chin was still upon his knees and his eyes fixed in front of him.