the retaining his hold on youth.  Well, he must face it!  He must be content to settle down as a small squire; he must disentangle himself from his Cambridge work gradually—­it sickened him to think of it—­and he must try to lead a quiet life, and perhaps put together a stupid book or two.  That was to be his programme.  He must just try to be grateful for a clear line of action.  If he had had nothing but Cambridge to depend upon, it would have been still worse.  Now he must settle down to county business if he could, and clear his mind of all foolish regrets.  Love and marriage—­he was ten years too late!  He had dawdled on, taking the line of least resistance, and he was now revealed to himself in a true and unsparing light.  He paced swiftly on, and presently entered the wood.  His feet fell soft on the grassy road among the coverts.

Suddenly, as he turned a corner, he saw a little open glade to the right.  A short way up the glade stood two figures—­Guthrie and Maud—­engaged in conversation.  They were standing facing each other.  She seemed to be expostulating with him in a laughing way; he stood bareheaded, holding his hat in his hand, eagerly defending himself.  The pose of the two seemed to show an easy sort of comradeship.  Maud was holding a stick in both hands behind her, and half resting upon it.  They seemed entirely absorbed in what they were saying.  Howard could not bear to intrude upon the scene.  He fell back among the trees, retraced his steps, and then sat down on a grassy bank, a little off the path, and waited.  It was the last confirmation of his fears.  It was not quite a lover-like scene, but they evidently understood each other, and were wholly at their ease together, while Guthrie’s admiring and passionate look did not escape him.  He rested his head in his hands, and bore the truth as he might have borne a physical pain.  The summer woods, the green thickets, the sunlight on the turf, the white clouds, the rich plain just visible through the falling tree-trunks, all seemed to him like a vision seen by a spirit in torment, something horribly unreal and torturing.  The two streams of beauty and misery appeared to run side by side, so distinct, so unblending; but the horrible fact was that though sorrow was able not only to assert its own fiery power, like the sting of some malignant insect, it could also obliterate and efface joy; it could even press joy into its service, to accentuate its torment; while the joy and beauty of life seemed wholly unable to soothe or help him, but were brushed aside, just as a stern soldier, armed and mailed, could brush aside the onslaught of some delicate and frenzied boy.  Was pain the stronger power, was it the ultimate power?  In that dark moment, Howard felt that it was.  Joy seemed to him like a little pool of crystalline water, charming enough if tended and sheltered, but a thing that could be soiled and scattered in a moment by the onrush of some foul and violent beast.