"You cannot imagine how I am longing to get a nearer peep of your beautiful old house. Do we get a chance further on?"
"No," said Halcyone. "I am so sorry. You branch further off once you have passed the closed gate. It was very stupid—the La Sarthe quarreled with the Wendovers a hundred years ago, and it was all closed up then, and these wicked spikes put."
"It is too tantalizing. But won't you walk with us to where we have to part?" Miss Lutworth said, while John Derringham had a sudden longing to turn back and carefully remove certain bits of iron and brick he wot of, and ask this nymph of the woods to take him on to their tree, and tell him more stories about Jason and Medea in that exquisitely refined voice of hers, as she had done once before, long ago. But even though he might not have this joy, he got rather a fine pleasure out of the fact of sharing the secret of the crossing with her, and he had the satisfaction of meeting her soft eyes in one lightning comprehending glance.
They chatted on about the view and the beauties of the neighborhood, and they all laughed often at some sally of Cora's—no one could resist her joyous, bubbling good-fellowship. She had all the sparkle of her clever nation, and the truest, kindest heart. Halcyone had never spoken to another young girl in her life, and felt like a yearling horse—a desire to whinny to a fellow colt and race up and down with him beside the dividing fence of their paddocks. A new light of youth and sweetness came into her pale face.
"I do wish I might ask you to come round by the road," she said, "and see it near, but, as Mr. Derringham knows, my aunts are very old, and one is almost an invalid now, so we never have any visitors at all."
"Of course, we quite understand," said Cora, quickly, touched at once by this simple speech. "But we should so love you to come over to us."
"Alas!" said Halcyone, "it is indeed the Styx."
And here they arrived at the boarded-up gate, where further view was impossible, and from which onwards the lands ceased to join.
"Good-by!" they called to one another, even Arabella Clinker joining in the chorus, while Cora Lutworth ran back to say:
"Some day we'll meet—outside the Styx. Let us get Mr. Derringham to manage it!"