“God! it is worse than the moonlight!” thought Mike, and went back to bed.  But he could not rest, and when he went again to the window there was a faint flush in the sky’s cheek; and then a bar of rose pierced the heavy ridge of clouds that hung above the woodland.

“An omen!  I will post her letter in the sunrise.”  And conscious of the folly, but unable to subdue that desire of romance so inveterate in him, he considered how he might leave the house.  He remembered, and with pleasure, that he could not pass down the staircase without disturbing the dog, and he thought of the prolonged barking that would begin the moment he touched the chain on the front door.  He would have to get out of the window; but the window was twenty feet from the ground.  “A rope!  I have no rope!  How absurd!” he thought, and, rejoicing in the absurdity, he drew a sheet from the bed and made it fast.  Going to Lily through a window seemed to relieve marriage of some of its shame.

“Life wouldn’t be complete without her.  Yes, that’s just it; that sums it up completely; curious I did not think of that before.  It would have saved such a lot.  Yes, life would not be complete without her.  The problem is solved,” and he dropped the letter as easily as if it had been a note asking for seats in the theatre.  “I’m married,” he said.  “Good heavens! how strange it seems.  I shall have to give her a ring, and buy furniture.  I had forgotten! ...  No difficulty about that now.  We shall go to my place in Berkshire.”

But he could not go back to bed, and he walked down to the river, his fine figure swinging beautifully distinct in his light clothing.  The dawn wind thrilled in his chest, for he had only a light coat over the tasselled silk night-shirt; and the dew drenched his feet as he swung along the pathway to the river.  The old willow was full of small birds; they sat ruffling their feathers, and when Mike sprang into the boat they flew through the gray light, taking refuge in some osier-beds.  And as he looked down stream he saw the night clouds dispersing in the wind.  He pulled, making the boat shoot through the water for about a mile, then touched by the beauty of the landscape, paused to view it.  Cattle lay in the long, moist meadows, harmonizing in their semi-unconsciousness with the large gray earth; mist hung in the sedges, floated evanescent upon the surface of the water, within reach of his oars, floated and went out in the sunshine.  But on the verge of an oak wood, amid tangled and tawny masses of fern and grass, a hound stopped and looked up.  Then the huntsman appeared galloping along the upland, and turning in his saddle, he blew a joyful blast.