Mr. Denison was more than usually silent. Now and then, after dinner, he dozed for a few minutes in his huge leathern chair; and presently, as though he yearned to be alone, he suggested that Conroy and Ella should take a turn in the grounds.
Ella wrapped a fleecy shawl round her white dress, and they set out. Traces of sunset splendour still lingered in the western sky, but from minute to minute the dying colours changed and deepened: saffron flecked with gold fading into sea-green, and that into a succession of soft opaline tints and pearly greys, edged here and there with delicate amber; while in mid-sky the drowsy wings of darkness were creeping slowly down.
They walked on through the dewy twilight glades of the park. Conroy seemed all at once to have lost his speech. Neither of them had much to say, but to both the silence exhaled a subtle sweetness. There are moments when words seem a superfluity--almost on impertinence. To live, to breathe--to feel that beside you is the living, breathing presence of the one supremely loved, is all that you ask for. It is well, perhaps, that such sweetly dangerous moments come so seldom in a lifetime.
They left the park by a wicket, took a winding footway through the plantation beyond, and reached the sand-hills, where they sat down for a few moments. Before them lay the sea, touched in mid-distance with faint broken bars of silvery light; for by this time the moon had risen, and all the vast spaces of the sky were growing brighter with her presence.
"How this scene will dwell in my memory when I am far away!" exclaimed Conroy at length.
"Are you going far away?" asked Ella, in a low voice.
"I received a letter from head-quarters this morning, bidding me hold myself in readiness to start for Africa at a few hours' notice."
"For Africa! That is indeed a long way off. Why should you be required to go to Africa?"
"The King of Ashantee is growing troublesome. We are likely before long to get from words to blows. War may be declared at any moment."
"And the moment war is declared you must be ready to start?"