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The short December afternoon was already fading in a clear white light on the low hills.

CHAPTER III

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THE ANSWER OF LIFE

HE short December afternoon was already fading in a clear white light on the low hills, and the shadows were creeping stealthily from point to point,

alert to seize every advantage and follow the retreating steps of day without break or pause. It was that most delightful of all hours, when work is done and the active enjoyment or companionship of the evening has not begun. Rosalind had come. in from a long walk with a charming air of vigor and vitality, which seemed to impart itself to the whole room. She gave the fire an energetic stirring, which brought its glow to a focus and kindled its latent flame into a sudden and fiery splendour.

Then she drew up a low ottoman, and sat down to enjoy the cheer and warmth which she had evoked. It was not the first time that something which had smoldered in my hands had caught life and beauty in hers. I was in a sombre mood. I had spent the morning, and, for that matter, a good many mornings, re-reading the Greek plays, and striving by a patient and persistent use of the imagination to possess myself of the secret of those masterly and immortal creations. To me they had long ceased to be dead, and today especially they were more vital and palpable than anything that I saw in the world around me. I had finished again that splendid trilogy in which Eschylus unfolds the doom of the house of Atreus. I had seen the flashing fires which lighted Agamemnon home to his death; I had heard Cassandra's awful monody; I had heard, too, that appalling cry which seemed to run through the world like the shudder of a doomed soul when the great leader fell in his own palace; I had witnessed the vengeance of the offended gods through the hands of Orestes; and I had followed

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