Next morning, rousing in the indolence of a bed hung with curtains of Indian pattern, Mike said to the footman who brought in his hot water—­

“Tell the coachman that I shall go out riding after breakfast.”

“What horse will you ride, sir?”

“I don’t know what horses you have in the stable.”

“Well, sir, you can ride either her ladyship’s hunter or the mare that brought you from the station in the dog-cart.”

“Very well.  I’ll ride her ladyship’s hunter. (My hunter, damn the fellow,” he said, under his breath.) “And tell the bailiff I shall want him; let him come round on his horse.  I shall go over the farms with him.”

The morning was chilly.  He stood before the fire while the butler brought in eggs, kidneys, devilled legs of fowl, and coffee.  The beauty of the coffee-pot caught his eye, and he admired the plate that made such rich effect on the old Chippendale sideboard.  The peacocks on the window-sills, knocking with their strong beaks for bread, pleased him; they recalled evenings passed with Helen; she had often spoken of her love for these birds.  He went to the window with bread for the peacocks, and the landscape came into his eyes:  the clump of leafless trees on the left, rugged and untidy with rooks’ nests; the hollow, dipping plain, melancholy of aspect now, misty, gray and brown beneath a lowering sky, dipping and then rising in a long, wide shape, and ringing the sky with a brown line.  The terrace with its straight walks, balustrades, urns, and closely-cropped yews was a romantic note, severe, even harsh.

One day, wandering from room to room, he found himself in Helen’s bedroom.  “There is the bed she died in, there is the wardrobe.”  Mike opened the wardrobe.  He turned the dresses over, seeking for those he knew; but he had not seen her for three years, and there were new dresses, and he had forgotten the old.  Suddenly he came upon one of soft, blue material, and he remembered she wore that dress the first time she sat on his knees.  Feeling the need of an expressive action, he buried his face in the pale blue dress, seeking in its softness and odour commemoration of her who lay beneath the pavement.  How desolate was the room!  He would not linger.  This room must be forever closed, left to the silence, the mildew, the dust, and the moth.  None must enter here but he, it must be sacred from other feet.  Once a year, on her anniversary, he would come to mourn her, and not on the anniversary of her death, but on that of their first kiss.  He had forgotten the exact day, and feared he had not preserved all her letters.  Perhaps she had preserved his.

Moved with such an idea he passed out of her bedroom, and calling for his keys, went into her boudoir and opened her escritoire, and very soon he found his letters; almost the first he read, ran as follows—­

“MY DEAR HELEN,