They strolled a little way in silence.

“And why did you tell Uncle Robert about Sylvia Falbe?” asked Francis.  “I can’t understand that.  For the present, anyhow, she had refused you.  There was nothing to tell him about.  If I was fond of a girl like that I should say nothing about it, if I knew my people would disapprove, until I had got her.”

Michael laughed.

“Oh, yes you would,” he said, “if you were to use your own words, fond of her ‘like that.’  You couldn’t help it.  At least, I couldn’t.  It’s—­it’s such a glory to be fond like that.”

He stopped.

“We won’t talk about it,” he said—­“or, rather, I can’t talk about it, if you don’t understand.”

“But she had refused you,” said the sensible Francis.

“That makes no difference.  She shines through everything, through the infernal awfulness of these days, through my father’s anger, and my mother’s illness, whatever it proves to be—­I think about them really with all my might, and at the end I find I’ve been thinking about Sylvia.  Everything is she—­the woods, the tide—­oh, I can’t explain.”

They had walked across the marshy land at the edge of the estuary, and now in front of them was the steep and direct path up to the house, and the longer way through the woods.  At this point the estuary made a sudden turn to the left, sweeping directly seawards, and round the corner, immediately in front of them was the long reach of deep water up which, even when the tide was at its lowest, an ocean-going steamer could penetrate if it knew the windings of the channel.  To-day, in the windless, cold calm of mid-winter, though the sun was brilliant in a blue sky overhead, an opaque mist, thick as cotton-wool, lay over the surface of the water, and, taking the winding road through the woods, which, following the estuary, turned the point, they presently found themselves, as they mounted, quite clear of the mist that lay below them on the river.  Their steps were noiseless on the mossy path, and almost immediately after they had turned the corner, as Francis paused to light a cigarette, they heard from just below them the creaking of oars in their rowlocks.  It caught the ears of them both, and without conscious curiosity they listened.  On the moment the sound of rowing ceased, and from the dense mist just below them there came a sound which was quite unmistakable, namely, the “plop” of something heavy dropped into the water.  That sound, by some remote form of association, suddenly recalled to Michael’s mind certain questions Aunt Barbara had asked him about the Emperor’s stay at Ashbridge, and his own recollection of his having gone up and down the river in a launch.  There was something further, which he did not immediately recollect.  Yes, it was the request that if when he was here at Christmas he found strangers hanging about the deep-water reach, of which the chart was known only to the Admiralty, he should let her know.  Here at this moment they were overlooking the mist-swathed water, and here at this moment, unseen, was a boat rowing stealthily, stopping, and, perhaps, making soundings.