"You're dreaming; and, besides, you're going away."
The light died out of his face, and they walked together in silence a few paces. Then the girl's mind established itself, and her love was a large factor in that decision, though not the only one. She determined upon a course of action beyond measure unconventional, but that aspect of the deed weighed most lightly with her.
They were passing over the face of Scor Hill when she turned to the left, where stood that ancient monument of the past named Scor Hill Circle.
"I'm going down to the old ring," she said; "I've a fancy to visit it."
He followed without speech, his mind occupied by a frosty picture of their last visit to the same spot. Now it basked under sunlight, and spring had touched both the splinters of granite and the lonely theatre in which they stood. Upon the weathered planes of the stones were chased quaint patterns and beads of moss, together with those mystic creatures of ochre and ebony, grey and gold, that suck life from air and adamant and clothe the dry bones of Earth with old Time's livery.
Upon a fallen stone in the midst, where young heather sprouted in tufts and cushions, Honor sat down awhile; and seeing that she remained silent, Myles uttered some platitudes concerning the spot and the ceremonies of heathen ritual, state, or sacrifice that had aforetime marked it. The upright stones surrounded them where they sat beside a sort of central altar of fading furze. The giant block of the circle stood on the north of its circumference, and upon more than one of the unshaped masses were spots rubbed clean by beasts and holding amid their incrustations red hairs of cattle, or flecks of wool from the fleeces of the flocks. Even now a heifer grazed upon the grass within the circle; its herd roamed below; round about the valley rose old familiar tors; while sleepy summer haze stole hither and thither upon the crowns of Watern and Steeperton, and dimmed the huge bulk of Cosdon Beacon where it swelled towards the north.
"When did we last come here?" began Honor suddenly.
"On the day of the snowstorm."
"Ah, yes. We were riding, and stopped a moment here. Why?"
Stapledon looked at her, then turned his head away.