One bright day Sir Donald and Esther take a stroll about the familiar grounds. The air is laden with perfume of flowers. Both are charmed with exquisite plant and foliage shades. Many exclamatory comments are uttered by the enthusiastic daughter, more gravely confirmed by her gently reserved father. They quit the mansion grounds for a stroll along the wood-fringed lake. Past the family graves, where a pensive hour is spent, they walk to where a small sail is locked fast by the pebbly shore. Sir Donald fails to loosen the fastening. Farther down is a rowboat, in which they start out on the lake.
Moving along with the breeze, both yield to meditation. Former tragic happenings upon this peaceful lake come to mind. Each ripple is tremulous with saddened retrospect. Every voice of wind and branch is keyed to minor utterance. These, with monotonous swish of slow waves, blending with notes of leaf-hid birds, seem miserere and requiem.
At this projecting shrub, bright-eyed, sweet-voiced, vivacious, loving, impulsive Alice Webster had been rescued by Oswald Langdon; yonder is the wooded point toward which Paul Lanier was sailing when, maddened by her frightened resistance and stinging protests, he roughly pushed Alice overboard. Here is the bank upon which the body again became instinct with life's returning pulses.
Such panorama, with varying lines of sorrowful perspective, passed before Sir Donald's and Esther's view. Each colored the pathetic pictures with like yet different hues, from peculiar tints of inner consciousness.
Sir Donald is struck by singular grouping of assault, projecting shrub, knotted tie, Oswald's sail and opportune rescue; Esther's memory reverts to that eloquent avowal beyond the distant ravine. Some misgivings as to her own conduct on that occasion are now felt. There is an accusing sense of vague responsibility for after tragic happenings. That true penitence often means restitution is a cardinal tenet in Esther's creed. This is now most soothing conscience specific.
If Esther wrongfully withheld from that earnest, masterful, persuasive suitor his just dues, she now feels such ethical qualms as to prompt payment with usury.
Moving with the breeze, the boat is nearing the point where Esther, Alice Webster, and Oswald Langdon were seated when Paul Lanier listened to that proposed London trip made necessary by the suit of William Dodge.