So they turned and walked leisurely across the gorse-covered downs until they reached the broad and dusty highway leading towards Winstead village.  And then again they struck into a by-lane with tall hedges, the banks underneath which were bright with stitchwort and speedwell and white dead-nettle.  Now and again, through a gap or a gate, they caught a glimpse of the lush meadows golden with buttercups; in one of them there was a small black pony standing in the shadow of a wide-spreading elm.  They passed some cottages with pretty gardens in front; they stopped for a second to look at the old-fashioned columbine and monkshood, the none-so-pretty, the yellow and crimson wall-flower, the peony roses.  Then always around them was this gracious silence, which seemed so strange after the roar of London; and if the day promised to become still hotter, at least they had this welcome breeze, that rustled the quick-glancing poplars, and stirred the white-laden hawthorns, and kept the long branches of the wych-elms and chestnuts swaying hither and thither.  They were not talking much now; one of them was thinking of a pair of gray eyes.

At last they came to a turnstile, and, passing through that, found themselves in one of those wide meadows; at the farther side of it the red-tiled roof, the gray belfry, and slated spire of Winstead Church just showed above the masses of green foliage.  They crossed the meadow and entered the churchyard.  A perfect silence reigned over the place; they could not hear what was going on within the small building; out here there was no sound save the chirping of the birds and the continuous murmur of the trees.  They walked about, looking thoughtfully at the gravestones—­many of them bearing names familiar enough to them in bygone years.  And perhaps one or other of them may have been fancying that when the great, busy world had done with him—­and used him up and thrown him aside—­here at least there would be peace preserved for him—­an ample sufficiency of rest under this greensward, with perhaps a few flowers put there by some kindly hand.  The dead did not seem to need much pity on this tranquil day.

Then into this universal silence came suddenly a low, booming sound that caused Lionel Moore’s heart to stand still:  it was the church organ—­that awakened a multitude of associations and recollections, that seemed to summon up the vanished years and the dreams of his youth, when it was he himself who used to sit at the instrument and call forth those massive chords and solemn tones.  Something of his boyhood came back to him; he seemed again to be looking forward to an unknown future; wondering and eager, he painted visions; and always in them, to share his greatness and his fame, there was some radiant creature, smiling-eyed, who would be at his side in sorrow and in joy, through the pain of striving and in the rapture of triumph.  And now—­now that the years had developed themselves—­what had become of these wistful