He laughed as he pressed her to him.
"Let them say!" he retorted. "Nell, I'll tell you the whole truth. If you had been engaged to poor Falconer, I should have married Luce——"
"Ah!" she breathed, with a shudder she could not repress.
"But you are not. And I am still free! And you are free! Nell, lift your head! Give me one kiss—only one—and I will be satisfied."
Her head still drooped for a moment, then she raised it and kissed him on the lips.
The summer breeze made music in the leaves, the linnet sang his heart out above their heads, the soft air breathed an atmosphere of love, and these two mortals were, after months of misery, happy beyond the power of words to express.
And as they sat, hand in hand, talking of the past, and picturing the future, neither of them naturally enough gave a thought to Lady Luce.
And yet he had asked her to come back to Anglemere; and without doubt she would come.