Let us go into the beech avenue." For a long time past Magdalen had noticed that Fay always wanted to be somewhere she was not.
They went in silence through the little wood that bounded the gardens, and passed into the great, bare, grey aisle of the beech avenue.
In a past generation a wide drive had led through this avenue to the house.

It had been the south approach to Priesthope.

But in these impoverished days, the road, with its sweep of turf on either side, had been neglected, and was now little more than a mossy cart-rut, with a fallen tree across it.
The two sisters sat down on a crooked arm of the fallen tree.
It was a soft, tranquil afternoon, flooded with meek February sunshine.
Far away between the green-grey trunks of the trees, the sea glinted like a silver ribbon.

Everything was very still, with the stillness set deep in peace of one who loves and awaits in awe love's next word.

The earth lay in the sunshine, and listened for the whisper of spring.