"If you are willing, we will go for a walk through the fields. I fancy we shall be recognized if we stop here."
"I am sure we shall—I have often been to Leybridge with Lady Vaughan."
They went out of the station and down the quiet street; they saw an opening that led to the fields.
"You will like the fields better than anywhere else," said Claude, and she assented.
They crossed a stile that led into the fertile clover meadows. It seemed as though the beauty and fragrance of the summer morning broke into full glow to welcome them; the rosy clouds parted, and the sun shone in the full lustre of its golden light; the trees, the hedges, the clover, were all impearled with dew—the drops lay thick, shining and bright, on the grass; there was a faint twitter of birds, as though they were just awakening; the trees seemed to stir with new life and vigor.
"Is this the morning?" said Hyacinth, looking round. "Why, Claude, it is a thousand times more beautiful than the fulness of day!"
[CHAPTER VII.]
Hyacinth and Claude stood together leaning against the stile. Something in the calm beauty of the summer morning awoke the brightest and purest emotions in him; something in the early song of the birds and in the shining dewdrops made Hyacinth think more seriously than she had yet done.
"I wonder," she said, turning suddenly to her lover, "if we shall ever look back to this hour and repent what we have done?"