So she fought her ground steadily against the swirling clouds of dust.
Had she only gone up the hill over the short, springy grass and the broken brown bracken she would have enjoyed the wind, as Ned Blackborough was enjoying it on his way to Cwmfaernog. For it was the 1st of March, the day on which he had promised Aura he would return and ask her once more to marry him. He had come back from the East but the day before, and being, so to speak, made up of impulses, moods, fancies, in the indulgence of which he had of late sought his chief pleasures, he had determined to find his way to her, as he had found it that very first night, over the summit of Llwydd y Bryn, the "Eye of the World."
Such fancies hurt no one, but he was beginning to realise that in them lay all the salt of life. What was it to the world, absorbed conventionally in the sordid sleep which follows perforce on sordid money grubbing, if he found the highest rhythm of life in the quiver of the moonlit woods? Nothing. Let those see who had the eyes to see.
So when, a bit wearied with his climb, he sat down where he had carelessly put out his hand to catch the flying footsteps of day, it struck him now, thoughtfully, that, in truth, it was all a man's life, all he could do towards gaining happiness. He must just catch at the flying footsteps of something unseen. Ever since the day when death had so nearly overtaken him while he was studying life in a black drop of water, he had been haunted at times by that feeling of sightlessness, touchlessness, soundlessness which had come to him then.
It came to him now on the top of Llwydd y Bryn, though before his bodily eyes lay half the principality of Wales, spread out as if it were a map. Surpassingly beautiful too. In its way as beautiful as that island in the Ægean, now waiting ready for its mistress, for he was quite prepared to follow Aura into the wilderness if needs be. He had thought much concerning her and concerning himself during the last six weeks, and he had begun to recognise that in some ways she was right in shrinking from what she called love, as a desecration of herself and of him. The feeling, however, was due to the absolutely unnatural association in marriage of the MIND with the body. An association which was simply an attempt to find a mental fig-leaf for what either required none, or was beyond decent cover. One thing, however, seemed to him certain. Aura must both love him and also desire to marry him. Yes, she loved him, or thought she did, which to her was the same thing.
He sprang to his feet, that thought being enough to start him on any path, and, ere leaving the summit, cast one look round it, remembering gladly that it might be the last time he should see it.
All was as his recollection held it. Just a brown, peaty, stone-strewn rise, and beyond, on all sides, an immensity of sea and sky and land. Only the placard on the shieling had been damaged by the winter storms. The ultimate 6d. was gone and "ginger beer" stood alone, vaunting itself free like the nectar of the gods.
Ginger beer! That was about what it came to for the million.
With an amused shrug of the shoulders he began the descent, every step of which was beautiful, every sight in which brought to him the feeling as if he trod on air, as if nothing in heaven or earth could trammel him again.
As he crossed the stream above the farm buildings, where on that night nine months ago they had stood and shouted, the whole steading struck him as looking forlorn and deserted, but, being sure of finding Martha in the kitchen, he went boldly through the cottage and passed through the door that was like a coal cellar's to the garden room. But this time there was no flash of blinding sunlight to dazzle him. It was almost dark, for the green sun-blinds on either side were drawn down; that, however, was surely a figure by the window.