Overhead the boughs of the tall fig-trees, with their wealth of broad leaves, made a most effective canopy. Behind was a high pomegranate hedge, in front young willows fringing a small runnel fed by the dam lower down, where bevies of finks fluttered in and out of their pendulous nests, making the air lively with their cheerful twitter. Glimpsed through an opening here and there the warm sun-rays shot down in golden kiss upon drooping loads of peaches and pears hanging from the fruit trees beyond.

“What’s the latest, Mr Elvesdon? Is there any fresh development in this unrest movement?”

It was Edala who spoke. Elvesdon had been contemplating her with a furtive but admiring satisfaction, as she sat there in her low chair, the gold aureole of her head resting back against her clasped hands. There was something in her every movement—her every pose—that fascinated him; yet not an atom of self-consciou. . . Read More