'I meant, how can you go and make trumpery trivial calls.'
'It did not answer in the year one thousand to sow no corn, in expectation of the end of the world,' he answered. 'Spiritually, as little as materially.'
He tried for his dry gentle manner, but was too much moved by her grief to make it natural.
'I'll come with you,' said Gertrude, leaping up.
He took his hat, and she a parasol, and they crossed the garden in silence till, almost at Tom's door, she exclaimed, with a choking gasp:
'Oh dear! oh dear! if there were anything I could do for you!'
'Thank you,' he answered affectionately, with a smiling trembling lip. 'One wish is very strong with me. Things may not be prepared for its fulfilment while I am here—but when it comes before you—you will remember what you say, and I think it will be granted.'
She turned, half petulantly, and plucked off the myrtle leaves.
'Are you going to give me a piece of that?' he said, smiling.
She broke off a spray in full flower.