1At almost the same moment that Olivia and Sabine entered the old house to lunch, the figures of Sybil and Jean appeared against the horizon on the rim of the great, bald hill crowned by the town burial-ground. Escaped at length from the eye of the curious, persistent Thérèse, they had come to the hill to eat their lunch in the open air. It was a brilliantly clear day and the famous view lay spread out beneath them like some vast map stretching away for a distance of nearly thirty miles. The marshes appeared green and dark, crossed and recrossed by a reticulation of tidal inlets frequented at nightfall by small boats which brought in whisky and rum from the open sea. There were, distantly visible, great piles of reddish rock rising from the endless white ribbon of beach, and far out on the amethyst sea a pair of white-sailed fishing-boats moved away in the direction of Gloucester. The white sails, so near to each other, carried a warm friendliness in a universe magnificent but also bleak and a little barren.

2Coming over the rim of the hill the sudden revelation of the view halted them for a moment. The day was hot, but here on the great hill, remote from the damp, low-lying meadows, there was a fresh cool wind, almost a gale, blowing in from the open sea. Sybil, taking off her hat, tossed it to the ground and allowed the wind to blow her hair in a dark, tangled mass about the serious young face; and at the same moment Jean, seized by a sudden quick impulse, took her hand quietly in his. She did not attempt to draw it away; she simply stood there quietly, as if conscious only of the wild beauty of the landscape spread out below them and the sense of the boy’s nearness to her. The old fear of depression and loneliness seemed to have melted away from her; here on this high brown hill, with all the world spread out beneath, it seemed to her that they were completely alone ... the first and the last two people in all the world. She was aware that a perfect thing had happened to her, so perfect and so far beyond the realm of her most romantic imaginings that it seemed scarcely real.

3A flock of glistening white gulls, sweeping in from the sea, soared toward them screaming wildly, and she said, “We’d better find a place to eat.”

4She had taken from the hands of Sabine the task of showing Jean this little corner of his own country, and to-day they had come to see the view from the burial-ground and read the moldering queer old inscriptions on the tombstones. On entering the graveyard they came almost at once to the little corner allotted long ago to immigrants with the name of Pentland—a corner nearly filled now with neat rows of graves. By the side of the latest two, still new and covered with fresh sod, they halted, and she began in silence to separate the flowers she had brought from her mother’s garden into two great bunches.

5“This,” she said, pointing to the grave at her feet, “is his. The other grave is Cousin Horace Pentland’s, whom I never saw. He died in Mentone.... He was a first cousin of my grandfather.”

6Jean helped her to fill the two vases with water and place the flowers in them. When she had finished she stood up, with a sigh, very straight and slender, saying, “I wish you had known him, Jean. You would have liked him. He was always good-humored and he liked everything in the world ... only he was never strong enough to do much but lie in bed or sit on the terrace in the sun.”

7The tears came quietly into her eyes, not at sorrow over the death of her brother, but at the pathos of his poor, weak existence; and Jean, moved by a quick sense of pity, took her hand again and this time kissed it, in the quaint, dignified foreign way he had of doing such things.

8They knew each other better now, far better than on the enchanted morning by the edge of the river; and there were times, like this, when to have spoken would have shattered the whole precious spell. There was less of shyness between them than of awe at the thing which had happened to them. At that moment he wanted to keep her forever thus, alone with him, on this high barren hill, to protect her and feel her always there at his side touching his arm gently. Here, in such a place, they would be safe from all the unhappiness and the trouble which in a vague way he knew was inevitably a part of living.

9As they walked along the narrow path between the rows of chipped, worn old stones they halted now and then to read some half-faded, crumbling epitaph set forth in the vigorous, Biblical language of the first hardy settlers—sometimes amused, sometimes saddened, by the quaint sentiments. They passed rows of Sutherlands and Featherstones and Canes and Mannerings, all turned to dust long ago, the good New England names of that little corner of the world; and at length they came to a little colony of graves with the name Milford cut into each stone. Here there were no new monuments, for the family had disappeared long ago from the Durham world.

10In the midst of these Jean halted suddenly and, bending over one of the stones, said, “Milford ... Milford.... That’s odd. I had a great-grandfather named Milford who came from this part of the country.”

11“There used to be a great many Milfords here, but there haven’t been any since I can remember.”

12“My great-grandfather was a preacher,” said Jean. “A Congregationalist. He led all his congregation into the Middle West. They founded the town my mother came from.”

13For a moment Sybil was silent. “Was his name Josiah Milford?” she asked.

14“Yes.... That was his name.”

15“He came from Durham. And after he left, the church died slowly. It’s still standing ... the big white church with the spire, on High Street. It’s only a museum now.”

16Jean laughed. “Then we’re not so far apart, after all. It’s almost as if we were related.”

17“Yes, because a Pentland did marry a Milford once, a long time ago ... more than a hundred years, I suppose.”

18The discovery made her happy in a vague way, perhaps because she knew it made him seem less what they called an “outsider” at Pentlands. It wouldn’t be so hard to say to her father, “I want to marry Jean de Cyon. You know his ancestors came from Durham.” The name of Milford would make an impression upon a man like her father, who made a religion of names; but, then, Jean had not even asked her to marry him yet. For some reason he had kept silent, saying nothing of marriage, and the silence clouded her happiness at being near him.

19“It’s odd,” said Jean, suddenly absorbed, in the way of men, over this concrete business of ancestry. “Some of these Milfords must be direct ancestors of mine and I’ve no idea which ones they are.”

20“When we go down the hill,” she said, “I’ll take you to the meeting-house and show you the tablet that records the departure of the Reverend Josiah Milford and his congregation.”

21She answered him almost without thinking what she was saying, disappointed suddenly that the discovery should have broken in upon the perfection of the mood that united them a little while before.

22They found a grassy spot sheltered from the August sun by the leaves of a stunted wild-cherry tree, all twisted by the sea winds, and there Sybil seated herself to open their basket and spread the lunch—the chicken, the crisp sandwiches, the fruit. The whole thing seemed an adventure, as if they were alone on a desert island, and the small act gave her a new kind of pleasure, a sort of primitive delight in serving him while he stood looking down at her with a frank grin of admiration.

23When she had finished he flung himself down at full length on the grass beside her, to eat with the appetite of a great, healthy man given to violent physical exercise. They ate almost in silence, saying very little, looking out over the marshes and the sea. From time to time she grew aware that he was watching her with a curious light in his blue eyes, and when they had finished, he sat up cross-legged like a tailor, to smoke; and presently, without looking at her he said, “A little while ago, when we first came up the hill, you let me take your hand, and you didn’t mind.”

24“No,” said Sybil swiftly. She had begun to tremble a little, frightened but wildly happy.

25“Was it because ... because....” He groped for a moment for words and, finding them, went quickly on, “because you feel as I do?”

26She answered him in a whisper. “I don’t know,” she said, and suddenly she felt an overwhelming desire to weep.

27“I mean,” he said quietly, “that I feel we were made for each other ... perfectly.”

28“Yes ... Jean.”

29He did not wait for her to finish. He rushed on, overwhelming her in a quick burst of boyish passion. “I wish it wasn’t necessary to talk. Words spoil everything.... They aren’t good enough.... No, you must take me, Sybil. Sometimes I’m disagreeable and impatient and selfish ... but you must take me. I’ll do my best to reform. I’ll make you happy.... I’ll do anything for you. And we can go away together anywhere in the world ... always together, never alone ... just as we are here, on the top of this hill.”

30Without waiting for her to answer, he kissed her quickly, with a warm tenderness that made her weep once more. She said over and over again, “I’m so happy, Jean ... so happy.” And then, shamefacedly, “I must confess something.... I was afraid you’d never come back, and I wanted you always ... from the very beginning. I meant to have you from the beginning ... from that first day in Paris.”

31He lay with his head in her lap while she stroked the thick, red hair, in silence. There in the graveyard, high above the sea, they lost themselves in the illusion which overtakes such young lovers ... that they had come already to the end of life ... that, instead of beginning, it was already complete and perfect.

32“I meant to have you always ... Jean. And after you came here and didn’t come over to see me ... I decided to go after you ... for fear that you’d escape again. I was shameless ... and a fraud, too.... That morning by the river ... I didn’t come on you by accident. I knew you were there all the while. I hid in the thicket and waited for you.”

33“It wouldn’t have made the least difference. I meant to have you, too.” A sudden impatient frown shadowed the young face. “You won’t let anything change you, will you? Nothing that any one might say ... nothing that might happen ... not anything?”

34“Not anything,” she repeated. “Not anything in the world. Nothing could change me.”

35“And you wouldn’t mind going away from here with me?”

36“No.... I’d like that. It’s what I have always wanted. I’d be glad to go away.”

37“Even to the Argentine?”

38“Anywhere ... anywhere at all.”

39“We can be married very soon ... before I leave ... and then we can go to Paris to see my mother.” He sat up abruptly with an odd, troubled look on his face. “She’s a wonderful woman, darling ... beautiful and kind and charming.”

40“I thought she was lovely ... that day in Paris ... the most fascinating woman I’d ever seen, Jean dear.”

41He seemed not to be listening to her. The wind was beginning to die away with the heat of the afternoon, and far out on the amethyst sea the two sailing ships lay becalmed and motionless. Even the leaves of the twisted wild-cherry tree hung listlessly in the hot air. All the world about them had turned still and breathless.

42Turning, he took both her hands and looked at her. “There’s something I must tell you ... Sybil ... something you may not like. But you mustn’t let it make any difference.... In the end things like that don’t matter.”

43She interrupted him. “If it’s about women ... I don’t care. I know what you are, Jean.... I’ll never know any better than I know now.... I don’t care.”

44“No ... what I want to tell you isn’t about women. It’s about my mother.” He looked at her directly, piercingly. “You see ... my mother and my father were never married. Good old Monsieur de Cyon only adopted me.... I’ve no right to the name ... really. My name is really John Shane.... They were never married, only it’s not the way it sounds. She’s a great lady, my mother, and she refused to marry my father because ... she says ... she says she found out that he wasn’t what she thought him. He begged her to. He said it ruined his whole life ... but she wouldn’t marry him ... not because she was weak, but because she was strong. You’ll understand that when you come to know her.”

45What he said would have shocked her more deeply if she had not been caught in the swift passion of a rebellion against all the world about her, all the prejudices and the misunderstandings that in her young wisdom she knew would be ranged against herself and Jean. In this mood, the mother of Jean became to her a sort of heroic symbol, a woman to be admired.

46She leaned toward him. “It doesn’t matter ... not at all, Jean ... things like that don’t matter in the end.... All that matters is the future....” She looked away from him and added in a low voice, “Besides, what I have to tell you is much worse.” She pressed his hand savagely. “You won’t let it change you? You’ll not give me up? Maybe you know it already ... that I have a grandmother who is mad.... She’s been mad for years ... almost all her life.”

47He kissed her quickly. “No, it won’t matter.... Nothing could make me think of giving you up ... nothing in the world.”

48“I’m so happy, Jean ... and so peaceful ... as if you had saved me ... as if you’d changed all my life. I’ve been frightened sometimes....”

49But a sudden cloud had darkened the happiness ... the cloud that was never absent from the house at Pentlands.

50“You won’t let your father keep us apart, Sybil.... He doesn’t like me.... It’s easy to see that.”

51“No, I shan’t let him.” She halted abruptly. “What I am going to say may sound dreadful.... I shouldn’t take my father’s word about anything. I wouldn’t let him influence me. He’s spoiled his own life and my mother’s too.... I feel sorry for my father.... He’s so blind ... and he fusses so ... always about things which don’t matter.”

52For a long time they sat in silence, Sybil with her eyes closed leaning against him, when suddenly she heard him saying in a fierce whisper, “That damned Thérèse!” and looking up she saw at the rim of the hill beyond the decaying tombstones, the stocky figure of Thérèse, armed with an insect-net and a knapsack full of lunch. She was standing with her legs rather well apart, staring at them out of her queer gray eyes with a mischievous, humorous expression. Behind her in a semicircle stood a little army of dirty Polish children she had recruited to help her collect bugs. They knew that she had followed them deliberately to spy on them, and they knew that she would pretend blandly that she had come upon them quite by accident.

53“Shall we tell her?” asked Jean in a furious whisper.

54“No ... never tell anything in Durham.”

55The spell was broken now and Jean was angry. Rising, he shouted at Thérèse, “Go and chase your old bugs and leave us in peace!” He knew that, like her mother, Thérèse was watching them scientifically, as if they were a pair of insects.