CHAPTER XXI.
The Encounter.
he two young people were returning from the concert that had been given in St. Julian's Hall. They were walking. It was a beautiful evening. Not a breath of wind, not a cloud in the sky. Both nature and humanity slumbered. A deep silence prevailed along the lane in which the young couple were walking.
'Twas a charming spot, these lanes, bordered on either side by high hedges of stone and earth, on which grew furze and grass, while here and there, a solitary primrose—it was the month of March,—was bending its slender stalk, loaded as it was with dew.
Conversation is an art. So is silence. The latter is even less known than the former.
Both the young people were now silent as they proceeded towards "Les Marches," but it was a silence which spoke. They knew each other's thoughts, one heart spoke to the other; they were both impressed with the supreme beauty of nature and filled with love, for that same evening they had plighted their troth.
It was Frank who first broke the silence: "How beautifully serene the sky is, Adèle; almost as clear as your forehead."