“Yes; but of course I quite see why it doesn’t worry you—if you honestly think there’s no virtue in believing.”

“Well,” said Edwin. “Is there?” The more he looked at it through her eyes, the more wonderful profundities he discovered in that remark of his, which at the time of uttering it had appeared to him a simple platitude. It went exceedingly deep in many directions.

“I hope you are right,” she replied. Her voice shook.


Five.

There was silence. To ease the strain of his self-consciousness Edwin stepped down from the stone floor of the porch to the garden. He felt rain. And he noticed that the sky was very much darker.

“By Jove!” he said. “It’s beginning to rain, I do believe.”

“I thought it would,” she answered.

A squall of wind suddenly surged rustling through the high trees in the garden of the Orgreaves, and the next instant threw a handful of wild raindrops on his cheek.

“You’d better stand against the other wall,” he suggested. “You’ll catch it there, if it keeps on.”