They left the King’s Road by the Royal Avenue, where the leaves were already thin and yellow, and passed through the Hospital and its broad grounds down to the river-side; then they turned to the right, and walked along the embankment, where are the great new red houses, to Cheyne Walk, and so across the Suspension Bridge.  Arnold did not speak one word the whole way.  His heart was so full that he could not trust himself to speak.  Who would not be four-and-twenty again, even with all the risks and dangers of life before one, the set traps, the gaping holes, and the treacherous quicksands, if it were only to feel once more the overwhelming spirit of the mysterious goddess of the golden cestus?  In silence they walked side by side over the bridge.  Half-way across, they stopped and looked up the river.  The tide was running in with a swift current, and the broad river was nearly at the full; the strong September sun fell upon the water, which was broken into little waves under a fresh breeze meeting the current from the north-west.  There were lighters and barges majestically creeping up stream, some with brown three-cornered sails set in the bows and stern, some slowly moving with the tide, their bows kept steady by long oars, and some, lashed one to the other, forming a long train, and pulled along by a noisy little tug, all paddle wheel and engine.  There was a sculler vigorously practicing for his next race, and dreaming, perhaps, of sending a challenge to Hanlan; there were some boys in a rowing-boat, laughing and splashing each other; on the north bank there was the garden of the Embankment, with its young trees still green, for the summer lasted into late September this year, and, beyond, the red brick tower of the old church, with its flag post on the top.  These details are never so carefully marked as when one is anxious, and fully absorbed in things of great importance.  Perhaps Arnold had crossed the bridge a hundred times before, but to day, for the first time, he noticed the common things of the river.  One may be an artist, and yet may miss the treasures that lie at the very feet.  This is a remark which occurs to one with each new Academy Show.  With every tide the boats go up and down with their brown sails, and always the tower of Chelsea Church rises above the trees, and the broad river never forgets to sparkle and to glow in the sunshine when it gets the chance.  Such common things are for the most part unheeded, but, when the mind is anxious and full, they force themselves upon one.  Arnold watched boats, and river, and sunshine on the sails, with a strange interest and wonder, as one sees visions in a dream.  He had seen all these things before, yet now he noticed them for the first time, and all the while he was thinking what he should say to Iris, and how he should approach the subject.  I know not whether Iris, like him, saw one thing and noticed another.  The thoughts of a maiden, as Lala Roy said, are secret thoughts.  She looked upon the river from the bridge with Arnold.  When he turned, she turned with him, and neither spoke.