"Well, I do not know.
That is for you to say.
It is unwise to plan.
Planning so often goes astray."
"We will make a pretence of planning," he said, "we will make a pretence that you come back to breakfast with me, and afterwards we take the boat and go down the river, and you shall fish again, but this time perhaps more successfully than the last."
"We will catch many fish?"
"That we will not decide tonight. We will leave that until the moment comes."
"And when we have done with fishing," she went on, "we will swim.
At noon, when the sun is hottest upon the water.
And afterwards, we will eat, and then sleep on our backs on a little beach.
And the heron will come down to feed with the turn of the tide, so that you can draw him again."
"No, I shall not draw the heron," he said, "it is time I made another drawing of the cabin-boy of La Mouette."
"And so another day," she said, "and another, and another.
And no past and no future, only the present."
"But today," he said, "is the longest day. Today is midsummer.
Have you forgotten that?"
"No," she said. "No, I have not forgotten."
And somewhere, she thought, before she slept, somewhere there is another Dona, lying in that great canopied bed in London, restless and lonely and knowing nothing of this night beside the creek, or of La Mouette at anchor there in the pool, or of his back against mine here in the darkness.
She belongs to yesterday. She has no part in this.
And somewhere too there is a Dona of tomorrow, a Dona of the future, of ten years away, to whom all this will be a thing to cherish, a thing to remember.
Much will be forgotten then, perhaps, the sound of the tide on the mud-flats, the dark sky, the dark water, the shiver of the trees behind us and the shadows they cast before them, and the smell of the young bracken and the moss.
Even the things we said will be forgotten, the touch of hands, the warmth, the loveliness, but never the peace that we have given to each other, never the stillness and the silence.
When she woke there was a grey light upon the trees, and a mist upon the water, and the two swans were coming back up the creek like ghosts of the morning.
The ashes of the fire were white as dust.
She looked at him beside her, as he lay sleeping, and she wondered why it was that men seemed children when they slept.
All lines were smoothed away, all knowledge too, they became again the small boys they had been long ago.
She shivered a little in the first chill of the day, and then, throwing aside the blanket, she stood with bare feet upon the ashes of the fire, and watched the swans disappear into the mist.
Then she leaned down for her cloak, and wrapped it about her, and turned away from the quay towards the trees, and the narrow twisting path that would bring her to Navron.
She tried to pick up the threads of her normal life.
The children in their beds.
James in his cot, with face flushed and fists clenched; Henrietta lying upon her face as she always did, her fair curls tumbled on the pillow; Prue, with open mouth, sleeping beside them.
While William, faithful William, kept watch upon the house, and lied for her sake and his master's.
Soon the mist would clear, and the sun would come up over the trees beyond the river, and even now, as she came out of the woods and stood upon the lawn, the morning light laid a finger upon Navron, as it slept, still and shuttered, while she stood there watching it.
She crept across the lawn, silver with dew, and tried the door. It was locked, of course.
She waited a moment, and then went round to the courtyard behind the house, for William's window looked upon it, and it might be that she could make him hear, if she called softly.
She listened beneath his window. It was open, and the curtain was not drawn. "William?" she said softly.
"William, are you there?"
There was no answer, and stooping, she picked up a little pebble and threw it against the pane.
In a moment his face appeared, and he stared at her as though she were a phantom, and then he put his finger to his lips and disappeared.
She waited, anxiety in her heart, for his face was white and haggard, the face of a man who had not slept.
James is ill, she thought, James is dead.
He is going to tell me that James is dead.
Then she heard him draw the bolts gently in the great door, and the door itself open a small space to admit her.
"The children?" she said, laying her hand on his sleeve, "the children, are they ill?"
He shook his head, still motioning her to silence, glancing over his shoulder to the stairway in the hall.
She entered the house, looking about her as she did so, and then, her heart leaping in sudden understanding, she saw the great-coat on the chair, the ridingwhip, the usual disorder of arrival, and there was a hat flung carelessly upon the stone floor, and a second riding-whip, and a thick plaided rug.
"Sir Harry has come, my lady," said William. "He came just before sundown, he had ridden from London. And Lord Rockingham is with him."
She said nothing. She went on staring at the great-coat on the chair. And suddenly, from above, she heard the shrill yapping of a little spaniel dog.
CHAPTER XVI
Once again William glanced up the stairway, his small eyes gleaming in his pale face, but Dona shook her head silently, and crossing the hall on tiptoe she led the way into the salon.