“I must go home, Gran; I feel ill.”

He hurried her away, grumbling to himself that he had known how it would be.

To her he said nothing; only when they were once more in the carriage, which by some fortunate chance had lingered near the door, he asked her: “What is it, my darling?”

Feeling her whole slender body shaken by sobs, he was terribly alarmed. She must have Blank tomorrow. He would insist upon it. He could not have her like this.⁠ ⁠… There, there!

June mastered her sobs, and squeezing his hand feverishly, she lay back in her corner, her face muffled in a shawl.

He could only see her eyes, fixed and staring in the dark, but he did not cease to stroke her hand with his thin fingers.

Evening at Richmond

Other eyes besides the eyes of June and of Soames had seen “those two” (as Euphemia had already begun to call them) coming from the conservatory; other eyes had noticed the look on Bosinney’s face.

There are moments when Nature reveals the passion hidden beneath the careless calm of her ordinary moods⁠—violent spring flashing white on almond-blossom through the purple clouds; a snowy, moonlit peak, with its single star, soaring up to the passionate blue; or against the flames of sunset, an old yew-tree standing dark guardian of some fiery secret.