They passed out of Esslemont gates together at that hour of the late afternoon when South-westerly breezes, after a summer gale, drive their huge white flocks over blue fields fresh as morning, on the march to pile the crown of the sphere, and end a troubled day with grandeur.  Up the lane by the park they had open land to the heights of Croridge.

‘Splendid clouds,’ Fleetwood remarked.

She looked up, thinking of the happy long day’s walk with her brother to the Styrian Baths.  Pleasure in the sight made her face shine superbly.  ‘A flying Switzerland, Mr. Woodseer says,’ she replied.  ’England is beautiful on days like these.—­For walking, I think the English climate very good.’

He dropped a murmur:  ‘It should suit so good a walker,’ and burned to compliment—­her spirited easy stepping, and scorned himself for the sycophancy it would be before they were on the common ground of a restored understanding.  But an approval of any of her acts threatened him with enthusiasm for the whole of them, her person included; and a dam in his breast had to keep back the flood.

’You quote Woodseer to me, Carinthia.  I wish you knew Lord Feltre.  He can tell you of every cathedral, convent, and monastery in Europe and Syria.  Nature is well enough; she is, as he says, a savage.  Men’s works, acting under divine direction to escape from that tangle, are better worthy of study, perhaps.  If one has done wrong, for example.’

‘I could listen to him,’ she said.

’You would not need—­except, yes, one thing.  Your father’s book speaks of not forgiving an injury.’

’My father does.  He thinks it weakness to forgive an injury.  Women do, and are disgraced, they are thought slavish.  My brother is much stronger than I am.  He is my father alive in that.’

‘It is anti-Christian, some would think.’

’Let offending people go.  He would not punish them.  They may go where they will be forgiven.  For them our religion is a happy retreat; we are glad they have it.  My father and my brother say that injury forbids us to be friends again.  My father was injured by the English Admiralty:  he never forgave it; but he would have fought one of their ships and offered his blood any day, if his country called to battle.’

‘You have the same feeling, you mean.’

’I am a woman.  I follow my brother, whatever he decides.  It is not to say he is the enemy of persons offending him; only that they have put the division.’

‘They repent?’

‘If they do, they do well for themselves.’

‘You would see them in sackcloth and ashes?’

‘I would pray to be spared seeing them.’

‘You can entirely forget—­well, other moments, other feelings?’

‘They may heighten the injury.’

‘Carinthia, I should wish to speak plainly, if I could, and tell you....’

‘You speak quite plainly, my lord.’