She threw open one of the windows on its hinges, and in a moment the room was flooded with the perfume of the roses of the garden.  She stood in the opening of the window and seemed to drink in the garden scents before they floated into the room.  Then from some secret nestling place in the dark depths of the clipped hedge there came the even-song of a blackbird.  It was replied to from the distance; and the silence that followed only seemed to be silence.  It was a silence made vocal by the bending of a thousand notes—­all musical.  The blackbirds, the thrushes, the robins made up a chorus of harmony as soothing to the soul as silence.  Then came the cooings of the wood pigeons.  The occasional shriek of a peacock was the only note out of harmony with the feeling breathed by the twilight.

She stood at the open window, her back turned to him, for some time.  He felt slightly embarrassed.  Her attitude somehow suggested to him an imprisonment; he was captured; she was standing between him and the open air; she was barring his passage.

Suddenly she turned.  With her movement there seemed to float into the room a great breath of rose-scent.  It was only that the light showed him more clearly at that moment the glowing whiteness of her neck and shoulders and arms.

“Why have you come back?” she cried, almost piteously.

“Surely you know why, Ella,” said he.

“I know nothing:  a man is one thing one day and quite the opposite the next day.  How can I know anything of what is in your mind to-day—­in your heart to-day?”

“I came back thinking to find her here still—­I fancied that you said she would stay until you were returning to-morrow.”

“You came back for her?”

“I came back to see her—­I find that I cannot live without seeing her.”

“You have only found that out since you left here yesterday morning?”

“Only since I left here.  I told you that I was not sure of myself.  That is why I went away.”

“You went away to make sure of yourself, and now you return to make sure of her?”

“Ah, if I could but think that!  If I could only be as sure of her as I am of myself.  But what am I that I should dare to hope?  Oh, she is above all womankind—­a crown of girlhood!  What am I that I should ask to wear this crown of girlhood?”

“You are a king of men, Bertie.  Only for the king of men is such a crown.”

She laughed as she stood looking at him as she leaned against the half open door of the window, one hand being on the framework above her head.

“Ella, you know her!” he cried, facing her.  She began to swing gently to the extent of an inch or two, still leaning on the edge of the hinged window.  She was looking at him through half-closed, curious eyes.  “Ella, you know her—­she has always been your friend; tell me if I should speak to her or if I should go back to the work that I have begun in New Guinea.”