Susan’s colour fades. A frown wrinkles her lovely brow.
‘I am not!’ says she coldly. ‘If all your thinking has only come to that—I—despise your thoughts.’
It is the nearest approach to a quarrel he has ever had with her; but, instead of depressing him, it seems to exalt him, and he goes on his way apparently rejoicing.
CHAPTER LV.
‘There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my love, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate.’
To-day the sun is out, and all the walks at the Cottage are glittering in its rays. Sparks like diamonds come from the small white stones in the gravel, and the grassy edges close to them—clean shaven by Denis, who is down again on a penitential visit to his wife—are sweet and fresh, and suggestive of a desire to make to-day’s work a work again for to-morrow, so quickly the spring blades grow and prosper.
Wyndham, as he walks from the station to this pretty spot, takes great note of Nature. Lately the loveliness—the charm of it!—the desire that grows in the heart for it, has come to him, has sunk into his soul. As he goes life seems everywhere, and with it such calm!... And here in this old home, what a place it is! A veritable treasury of old-world delights—