"I thank God that He has turned your heart again to me. May I feel His righteous anger if ever I give you cause to regret the step you are taking."
"I shall never regret it, Malcolm," she answered softly, as she held out her hand to me.
Then we rode by the dove-cote, out from Haddon Hall, never to see its walls again.
We went to Rutland, whence after a fortnight we journeyed to France. There I received my mother's estates, and never for one moment, to my knowledge, has Madge regretted having intrusted her life and happiness to me. I need not speak for myself.
Our home is among the warm, sunlit, vine-covered hills of southern France, and we care not for the joys of golden streets so long as God in His goodness vouchsafes to us our earthly paradise. Age, with the heart at peace, is the fairest season of life; and love, leavened of God, robs even approaching death of his sting and makes for us a broad flower-strewn path from the tempestuous sea of time to the calm, sweet ocean of eternity.
CHAPTER XVI
LEICESTER WAITS AT THE STILE
I shall now tell you of the happenings in Haddon Hall during the fortnight we spent at Rutland before our departure for France.
We left Dorothy, you will remember, a prisoner in her rooms.