“I do not know what I do feel,” said Theodora.  “But perhaps—­could it be true that we met when we lived before; and when was that? and who were we?”

“It matters not a jot,” said he.  “So long as you feel it too—­that we are not only of yesterday, you and I. There is some stronger link between us.”

For one second they looked into each other’s eyes, and each read the other’s thoughts mirrored there; and if his said, in conscious, passionate words, “I love you,” hers were troubled and misty with possibilities.  Then she jumped up from her seat suddenly, and her voice trembled a little as she said: 

“And now I want to go out of the wood.”

He rose too and stood beside her, while he pointed to the glade to the left of the centre they were facing.

“We must penetrate into the future then,” he said, “because I told my chauffeur to meet us on the road where I think that will lead to.  We cannot go back by the way we have come.”

And she did not answer; she was afraid, because she remembered all those avenues were barred by—­love.

As he walked beside her, Hector Bracondale knew that now he must be very, very careful in what he said.  He must lull her fears to sleep again, or she would be off like a lark towards high heaven, and he would be left upon earth.

So he exerted himself to interest and amuse her in less agitating ways.  He talked of his home and his mother and his sister.  He wanted Theodora to meet them.  She would like Anne, he said, and his mother would love her, he knew.  And again the impossible vision same to him, and he felt he hated the face of Morella Winmarleigh.

Usually when he had been greatly attracted by a married woman before, he had unconsciously thought of her as having the qualities which would make her an adorable mistress, a delicious friend, or a holiday amusement.  There had never been any reverence mixed up with the affair, which usually had the zest of forbidden fruit, and was hurried along by passion.  It had always only depended upon the woman how far he had got beyond these stages; but, as he thought of Theodora, unconsciously a picture always came to him of what she would be were she his wife.  And it astonished him when he analyzed it; he, the scoffer at bonds, now to find this picture the fairest in the world!

And as yet he was hardly even dimly growing to realize that fate would turn the anguish of this desire into a chastisement of scorpions for him.

Things had always been so within his grasp.

“We shall go to England on Tuesday,” Theodora said, as they sauntered along down the green glade.  “It is so strange, you know, but I have never been there.”

“Never been to England!” Hector exclaimed, incredulously.

“No!” and she smiled up at him.  All was at peace now in her mind, and she dared to look as much as she pleased.

“No.  Papa used to go sometimes, but it was too expensive to take the whole family; so we were left at Bruges generally, or at Dieppe, or where we chanced to be.  If it was the summer, often we have spent it in a Normandy farm-house.”