A day of showers, then a day of excessive heat.  They saw each other several times, but nothing of moment passed.  The morning after they met before breakfast.

‘To-morrow is our last day,’ said Nancy.

‘Yes, Mrs. Morgan told me.’  Nancy herself had never spoken of departure.  ‘This afternoon we’ll go up the hill again.’

’I don’t think I shall care to walk so far.  Look at the mist; it’s going to be dreadfully hot again.’

Tarrant was in a mood of careless gaiety; his companion appeared to struggle against listlessness, and her cheek had lost its wonted colour.

’You have tea at four or five, I suppose.  Let us go after that, when the heat of the day is over.’

To this, after various objections, Nancy consented.  Through the hours of glaring sunshine she stayed at home, lying inert, by an open window.  Over the tea-cups she was amiable, but dreamy.  When ready to go out, she just looked into the sitting-room, where Jessica bent over books, and said cheerfully: 

’I may be a little late for dinner.  On no account wait—­I forbid it!’

And so, without listening to the answer, she hurried away.

In the upward climbing lanes, no breeze yet tempered the still air; the sky of misted sapphire showed not a cloud from verge to verge.  Tarrant, as if to make up for his companion’s silence, talked ceaselessly, and always in light vein.  Sunshine, he said, was indispensable to his life; he never passed the winter in London; if he were the poorest of mortals, he would, at all events, beg his bread in a sunny clime.

‘Are you going to the Bahamas this winter?’ Nancy asked, mentioning the matter for the first time since she heard of it at Champion Hill.

‘I don’t know.  Everything is uncertain.’

And he put the question aside as if it were of no importance.

They passed the old gate, and breathed with relief in the never-broken shadow of tangled foliage.  Whilst pushing a bramble aside, Tarrant let his free arm fall lightly on Nancy’s waist.  At once she sprang forward, but without appearing to notice what had happened.

‘Stay—­did you ever see such ivy as this?’

It was a mass of large, lustrous leaves, concealing a rotten trunk.  Whilst Nancy looked on, Tarrant pulled at a long stem, and tried to break it away.

‘I must cut it.’

‘Why?’

‘You shall see.’

He wove three stems into a wreath.

’There now, take off your hat, and let me crown you.  Have I made it too large for the little head?’

Nancy, after a moment’s reluctance, unfastened her hat, and stood bareheaded, blushing and laughing.

’You do your hair in the right way—­the Greek way.  A diadem on the top—­the only way when the hair and the head are beautiful.  It leaves the outline free—­the exquisite curve that unites neck and head.  Now the ivy wreath; and how will you look?’