He was switching the tremulous spring flowers along the path with his cane, and not looking at her as he spoke.
"How long shall you be gone?"
He laughed.
"Montreal has no charms for me, you know," he replied; "I shall not remain there long, probably not over a week."
"The house will be lonely when you are gone—now that Rose is away."
She sighed a little, saying it. Somehow, a vague feeling of uneasiness had disturbed her of late—something wanting in Reginald—something she could not define, which used to be there and was gone. She did not like this readiness of his to leave her on all occasions. She loved him with such a devoted and entire love, that the shortest parting was to her acutest pain.
"Are you coming in?" he asked, seeing her linger under the trees.
"Not yet; the evening is too fine."
"Then I must leave you. It will hardly be the thing, I suppose, to go to dinner in this shooting-jacket."
He entered the house and ran up to his room. The dinner-bell was ringing before he finished dressing; but when he descended, Kate was still lingering out of doors. He stood by the window watching her, as she came slowly up the lawn. The yellow glory of the sunset made an aureole round her tinseled hair; her slender figure robed in shimmering silk; her motion floating and light. He remembered that picture long afterwards: that Canada landscape, that blue silvery mist filling the air, and the tall, graceful girl, coming slowly homeward, with the fading yellow light in her golden hair.