“You’re thoroughly unhappy, my dear,” said Miss Gault. “I can see it in everything about you. What is it, Wolf? It’s ridiculous not to confide in an ugly old woman like me! What is it, Wolf?”

A sound of bells came to them at that moment, carried on a gust of soft air that was like dark, sweet rainwater.

“The Abbey,” murmured Miss Gault. “They’re out of church; but they always go on ringing those bells.”

“I like to hear them,” he responded; and then, with a sigh: “I suppose it’s the same with everyone. Life doesn’t get easier.”

A kind of disintegrating softness had fallen upon him. The vaporous sunshine, the dreamy light-blowing air, the imponderable fragrance, seemed to combine to melt some basic resistance in his bones. He felt as if there were arising from that place of mortality a sweet, faint, relaxing breath, full of the deliciousness of luxurious dissolution.