Her gown had caught on the cliff briers; he knelt to release it, she
looking down, noting an ugly tear in the fabric.

"Payment for my iniquities--the first instalment," she said, still
looking down over his shoulder and watching his efforts to release her.
"Thank you, Mr. Siward. I think we ought to start, don't you?"

He straightened up, smiling, awaiting her further pleasure. Her pleasure
being capricious, she seated herself again, saying: "What I meant to say
was this: evils that spring from heredity are no excuse for misconduct
in people of our sort. Environment, not heredity, counts. And it's our
business, who have every chance in the world, to make good!"

He looked down, amused at the piquant incongruity of voice and
vernacular.

"What time is it?" she asked irrelevantly.

He glanced at his watch. She turned her eyes toward the level sun,
conscious, and a little conscience-stricken that it was too late for her
to drive to Black Fells Crossing--unless she started at once.

The sun hung low over the pines; all the scrubby foreland ran molten
gold in every tufted furrow; flock after flock of twittering little
birds whirled into the briers and out again, scattering inland into
undulating flight.

The zenith turned shell pink; through clotted shoals of clouds spread
spaces of palest green like calm lakes in the sky.