When Lady Constantine awoke the next morning Swithin was nowhere to be seen. Before she was quite ready for breakfast she heard the key turn in the door, and felt startled, till she remembered that the comer could hardly be anybody but he. He brought a basket with provisions, an extra cup-and-saucer, and so on. In a short space of time the kettle began singing on the stove, and the morning meal was ready.

The sweet resinous¹ air from the firs blew in upon them as they sat at breakfast; the birds hopped² round the door (which, somewhat riskily³, they ventured to keep open); and at their elbow rose the lank⁴ column into an upper realm of sunlight, which only reached the cabin in fitful darts⁵ and flashes through the trees.

‘I could be happy here for ever,’ said she, clasping his hand. ‘I wish I could never see my great gloomy house again, since I am not rich enough to throw it open, and live there as I ought to do. Poverty of this sort is not unpleasant at any rate. What are you thinking of?’

‘I am thinking about my outing this morning. On reaching my grandmother’s she was only a little surprised to see me. I was obliged to breakfast there, or appear to do so, to divert suspicion; and this food is supposed to be wanted for my dinner and supper. There will of course be no difficulty in my obtaining an ample supply for any length of time, as I can take what I like from the buttery without observation. But as I looked in my grandmother’s face this morning, and saw her looking affectionately in mine, and thought how she had never concealed⁶ anything from me, and had always had my welfare at heart, I felt — that I should like to tell her what we have done.’

‘O no — please not, Swithin!’ she exclaimed piteously.

‘Very well,’ he answered. ‘On no consideration will I do so without your consent.’ And no more was said on the matter.

The morning was passed in applying wet rag and other remedies to the purple line on Viviette’s cheek; and in the afternoon they set up the equatorial under the replaced

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