It is her turn to interrupt this time, which she does by kissing him.  ‘Do you know,’ she says, ’you nearly made me forget what I was going to say—­’

‘Is it of great importance?’ asks he.

’Yes, it is.  Don’t you think it would be nice to ask Mabel and the children down here, and we might all go back to London together.  I know Teddy would like the sands here; and there is plenty of room; shall we?’

Jimmy says yes, although he would have preferred to remain alone for a little longer.

There is something so nice in knowing that the lovely little person who is always with him, is his very own to take care of and protect against everything, for all the years that lie before them.  And he fears to be disturbed, in case it may all prove a dream, and burst like a bubble with the slightest contact of the outer world.  But a week later Mabel arrives accompanied by Teddy and the baby; George and Paul, whom Lippa has also begged to come, turn up, and the lovely days that follow, when the sun creeps into their rooms in the early morning enticing them out, where the hedges are covered with sweet smelling honey-suckle and the fields are carpeted with brilliant red poppies, and a walk will take them to the ‘Garden of Sleep,’ where among the tombstones and long grass they can watch the sea sparkling in a golden haze, and listen to the waves as they break on the yellow sands; where the birds are ever trilling forth their songs without words; those days for ever are stored in the minds of some of them as the loveliest summer man could wish for.

CHAPTER XI

    ’Love pardons the unpardonable past.’—­CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

It is six o’clock.  The tea things have been taken away, and the occupants of the little drawing-room are all apparently lazily enjoying themselves.

Mabel has the baby on her knee, her husband is dozing in an armchair, Jimmy is sitting half-in half-out of the window, Paul is reading, and Philippa is lying on the sofa.

‘Lippa,’ says Dalrymple, ‘sing us something.’

‘What would you like?’ she answers, rising slowly.

‘Anything,’ he replies.

She runs her fingers over the keys and then sings ‘The Garden of Sleep.’

Paul closes his book as she begins, looking at her earnestly.

Why does she sing that song, so close as they are to the real spot; and why does it say ‘the graves of dear women,’ the only one he knows buried there is a little child.  He rises abruptly as the song is finished, and passes through the French window into the garden.  Philippa has begun something else.  He pauses and listens.

    ’Why live when life is sad? 
    Death only sweet.’

Ah! thinks he, that is exactly it.  What good is life to me!

The evening sun floods with a golden haze the road before him; he walks on, the distant sound of the waves coming up from the sands, and almost unconsciously he sings in a low voice,