her eyes from him; and yet he drew from these meetings an infinite series of pictures, which were as if engraved upon his brain.  She became for him in these days like a lily drooping in a shadowed place and in a thunderous air; something fading away mutely and sorrowfully, like the old figure of Mariana in the Grange, looking wearily through listless hours for something which had once beckoned to her with a radiant gesture, but which did not return.  There were brighter hours, when in the hot July days a little peace fell on him, a little sense of the fragrance and beauty of the world.  He took to long and solitary walks on the down in search of bodily fatigue.  There was one day in particular which he long remembered, when he had gone up to the camp, and sate in the shade of the thicket on the crisp turf, looking out over the valley, unutterably quiet and peaceful in the hot air.  The trees were breathlessly still; the hamlet roofs peeped out above the orchards, the hot air quivered on the down.  There were little figures far below moving about the fields.  It all looked lost in a sweetness of serene repose; and the thoughts that had troubled him rose with a bitter poignancy, that was almost a physical pain.  The contrast between the high summer, the rich life of herb and tree, and his own weary and arid thoughts, fell on him like a flash.  Would it not be better to die, to close one’s eyes upon it all, to sink into silence, than thus to register the awful conflict of will and passion with the tranquil life that could not surrender its dreams of peace?  What did he need and desire?  He could not tell; he felt almost a hatred of the slender, quiet girl, with her sweet look, her delicate hands, her noiseless movements.  She had made no claim, she did not come in radiant triumph, with impressive gestures and strong commanding influences into his life; she had not even cried out passionately, demanded love, displayed an urgent need; there had been nothing either tragic or imperious, nothing that called for instant solution; she was just a girl, sweet, wayward, anxious-minded, living a trivial, simple, sheltered life.  What had given her this awful power over him, which seemed to have rent and shattered all his tranquil contentment, and yet had offered no splendid opportunity, claimed no all-absorbing devotion, no magnificent sacrifice?  It was a sort of monstrous spell, a magical enchantment, which had thus made havoc of all his plans and gentle schemes.  Life, he felt, could never be the same for him again; he was in the grip of a power that made light of human arrangements.  The old books were full of it; they had spoken of some hectic mystery, that seized upon warriors and sages alike, wasted their strength, broke their energies, led them into crime and sorrow.  He had always rather despised the pale and hollow-eyed lovers of the old songs, and thought of them as he might think of men indulging in a baneful drug which filched away all manful prowess and vigour.  It