"H'm. Perhaps it would be better—just at the first go off. And I don't believe you really care as much about hunting as you think you do, Virginia."
She looked into his face with her dark, sweet eyes. "I don't care about anything, except to please you, Dick," she said. "As for hunting—it was the excitement—to keep my mind off. It was the only thing he let me do, over here. I believe he would have liked me to kill myself, and sometimes I used to try to."
He put his hand before her mouth. "You are not to talk about those bad times," he said.
She kissed his hand, and removed it. "I like to, sometimes," she said. "It is such a blessed relief to think of them as quite gone—it is like the cessation of bad neuralgia—just a sense of peace and bliss. Perhaps I didn't really try to kill myself, but certainly I shouldn't have cared if I had. It was not caring that gave me my reputation, I suppose, for I didn't mind where I went or what I did. I do care now. I don't think I should very much mind giving it up altogether."
"Well, you mustn't do that for this winter, at any rate. You shall do what you like afterwards. And as for your reputation, my dear, I'm afraid we are so out of the smart hunting world in South Meadshire that you will find very few of us aware of it. So you needn't run any risks in trying to keep it up."
"Very well, Dick. But I expect when the hounds begin to run I shall forget that I have to be cautious. Yes, I do love it. I don't want to give up hunting. And there won't be much for me to do here outside that, will there?"
"I'm afraid I am condemning you to a dull three months, my poor Virginia. But I want you to get to know the country, and love it, as I do. Kencote means a lot to me. I want it to mean a lot to you too."
"So it shall. I love it already, for your sake, and it seems a wonderful thing to me that you and all the people you have sprung from should have been settled down just in this little spot in the world for all those centuries. Dick dear, I know you are giving up a lot for me. I know, although I wasn't brought up in all these traditions, that your father is right, really, and that it is not a woman like me you ought to choose for your wife."
Dick raised her hand and let it fall with his own. "I have chosen you for my wife, Virginia, out of all the women I have known. I love and honour you, and I wouldn't have you different—not in the smallest particular. No Clinton of Kencote has ever chosen a wife more worthy to bear his name. Let that be enough for you, and don't worry your pretty head about anything, except to make love to my old father when you meet him."
When Dick had ridden away, in the gloaming, and the two women were left to themselves for the long evening, Virginia Dubec said to Miss Dexter, "Toby, tell me the truth; don't you think I am the most fortunate woman in the world?"