But now someone was coming.  Not with audible footstep; not down the road at which Irene frequently glanced; the intruder approached from the lower part of the glen, along the beckside, now walking in soft herbage, now striding from stone to stone, sometimes lifting the bough of a hazel or a rowan that hung athwart his path.  He drew near to the crossing.  He saw the figure on the bridge, and for a moment stood at gaze.

Irene was aware of someone regarding her.  She moved.  He stood below, the ripple-edge of the water touching his foot.  Upon his upturned face, dark eyes wide in joy and admiration, firm lips wistfully subduing their smile, the golden sunlight shimmered through overhanging foliage.  She spoke.

“Everything around is beautiful, but this most of all.”

“There is nothing more beautiful,” he answered, “in all the dales.”

The words had come to her easily and naturally, after so much trouble as to what the first words should be.  His look was enough.  She scorned her distrust, scorned the malicious gossip that had excited it.  Her mind passed into consonance with the still, warm hour, with the loveliness of all about her.

“I haven’t been that way yet.”  She pointed up the glen.  “Will you come?”

“Gladly!  I was here with Mrs. Borisoff this morning, and wished so much you had been with us.”

Irene stepped down from the bridge down to the beckside.  The briefest shadow of annoyance had caused her to turn her face away; there followed contentment that he spoke of the morning, at once and so frankly.  She was able to talk without restraint, uttering her delight at each new picture as they went along.  They walked very slowly, ever turning to admire, stopping to call each other’s attention with glowing words.  At a certain point, they were obliged to cross the water, their progress on this side barred by natural obstacles.  It was a crossing of some little difficulty for Irene, the stones being rugged, and rather far apart; Piers guided her, and at the worst spot held out his hand.

“Jump!  I won’t let you fall.”

She sprang with a happy girlish laugh to his side, and withdrew her hand very gently.

“Here is a good place to rest,” she said, seating herself on a boulder.  And Piers sat down at a little distance.

The bed of the torrent was full of great stones, very white, rounded and smoothed by the immemorial flow, by their tumbling and grinding in time of spate; they formed innumerable little cataracts, with here and there a broad plunge of foam-streaked water, perilously swift and deep.  By the bank the current spread into a large, still pool, of colour a rich brown where the sunshine touched it, and darkly green where it lay beneath spreading branches; everywhere limpid, showing the pebbles or the sand in its cool depths.  Infinite were the varyings of light and shade, from a dazzling gleam on the middle water, to the dense