She laid her hand on his arm, and looked straight up at him—eye to eye. Often, it seemed that from long habit they could read one another's minds in this way, clearly as a book. At last John said:
"Would it be too hard a sacrifice, love?"
"How can you talk so! We could do it easily, by living in a plainer way; by giving up one or two trifles. Only outside things, you know. Why need we care for outside things?"
"Why, indeed?" he said, in a low, fond tone.
So I easily found out how they meant to settle the difficulty; namely, by setting aside a portion of the annual income which John, in his almost morbid anxiety lest his family should take harm by any possible non-success in his business, had settled upon his wife. Three months of little renunciations—three months of the old narrow way of living, as at Norton Bury—and the poor people at Enderley might have full wages, whether or no there was full work. Then in our quiet valley there would be no want, no murmurings, and, above all, no blaming of the master.
They decided it all—in fewer words than I have taken to write it—it was so easy to decide when both were of one mind.
"Now," said John, rising, as if a load were taken off his breast—"now, do what he will Lord Luxmore cannot do me any harm."
"Husband, don't let us speak of Lord Luxmore."
Again that sigh—quite ghostly in the darkness. They heard it likewise this time.
"Who's there?"