When the bend of the road had hidden horse and rider, she left the gate and began her return to the house.  Her path lay through a field, through the cedar wood, and through the flower garden.  In the field beside a runlet grew masses of purple ironweed.  She broke a stately piece, half as tall as herself, and with it in her hand left the autumn-coloured field and entered the little wood where the cedars grew dark and close, with the bare, red earth beneath.  At the end of the aisle of trees could be seen the bright-hued garden and a fraction of blue heaven.  Holding the branch of ironweed before her, Jacqueline passed through the wood toward the light of sky and flowers, and came at the edge of the open space upon a large old tree, twisted like one of those which Dante saw.  As she stepped beneath the dark and spreading boughs a man, leaving the sunlit flower garden for the shadow of the cedars, met her face to face.  “You!” he cried, and stopped short.

The branch of ironweed dropped from her hand.  “I did not know that you were at Fontenoy.  I have not seen you this long while—­except for that moment the other night.  Is it not—­is it not the loveliest day?”

“I came from the library into the flower garden and on to this wood because I wished to think, to be alone, to gain composure before I returned to the house—­and you front me like a spectre in the dimness!  Once before, I entered this wood from the flower garden—­and it was dark, dark as it is to-day, though the weather was June.  Nor do I, either, count the other night when I came to Roselands as Colonel Churchill’s messenger.  It has been long, indeed, since we truly met.”

“You are not well, Mr. Cary!”

“I am—­I am,” said Cary.  “Give me a moment.”

He rested his arm against the red trunk of the cedar and covered his eyes with his hand.  Jacqueline stood, looking not at him but at the coloured round of garden.  Her heart was fluttering, she knew not why.  The moment that he asked went by and, dropping his arm, he turned upon her a face that he had not yet schooled to calmness.

“The evening of the nineteenth of February,” he said.  “That was the last time we really met.  Do you remember?”

“Yes, I remember.  It was the day of the deep snow.”

Cary regarded her mutely; then, “Yes, that was the important thing.  We all remember it because of the snow.  You were learning a new song that you promised to sing to me when I came again.  But I never heard it—­I never came again.”

“I know.  Why was that?”

“Do you ask?” he cried, and there was pain and anger in his voice.  “I thought it not of you.”

The crimson surged over Jacqueline’s face and throat.  She bent toward him impetuously, with a quick motion of her hands.  “Ah, forgive me!” she cried.  “I know—­I know.  I was told of the quarrel next day in the coffee house.  I—­I was more sorry than I can say.  I understood.  You could not, after that, come again to the house.  Oh, more than almost anything, I wish that you and Lewis were friends!  It is wrong to try to make you think that that evening does not live in my memory.  It does—­it does!”