There were few other interruptions to the silence of that chapel-like library. Half a dozen times in the first few months a fair-haired, rather supercilious young man came and fetched away a few volumes; but even he evidenced an inclination to walk on tip-toe, a tendency that mastered him whenever he forgot for a moment his self-imposed rôle of scorn....
Outside, over the swelling undulations of rich grass the sheep came back with close-cropped, ungainly bodies to a land that was yellow with buttercups. But when one looked again, their wool hung about them, and they were snatching at short turf that was covered at the wood-side by a sprinkle of brown leaves. Then the sheep have gone, and the wood is black with February rain, and again the unfolding of the year is about us; a thickening of high twigs in the wood, a glint of green on the blackthorn....
Nearly three cycles of death and birth have run their course, and then the strange little figure comes no more to the library at Challis Court.