“He is not coming yet, Mazi?” asked the woman in French.
“No, mamma, but he will. He said he would. Oh, I am so happy with him! I love him so! He is all life to me!”
“May you ever feel like that!” murmured the older woman.
Soon after that, the first of the figures in the procession reached the little cottage. The girl flew to the door, crying:
“Jean! Jean! What made you so late?”
“I could not help it, sweetheart. I but waited to get the last of my wages. Now I am paid, and we shall go on our honeymoon!”
“Oh, Jean! I am so happy!”
“And I, too, Mazi!” and the man drew the girl to him, a strange light shining in his eyes.
They sat down just outside the little cottage, where the gleam from the lamp would not reflect on them too strongly, and talked of many things. Of old things that are ever new, and of new things that are destined to be old.
The second figure of the procession that seemed to make the lonely cottage on the moor a rendezvous that evening, was not far behind that of the lover. It was a figure of a man in a natty blue serge suit. A panama hat of expensive make sat jauntily on top of his head on which curled close, heavy black hair.