The mist was rising a little from the low-lying fields towards the village, across which two country lads were walking home, one with an empty milk-pail in his hand, the other with a spade over his shoulder, whistling loudly. And in the dusk husband and wife spoke together of the dear event that was coming, and in that human love and longing their souls met and mingled. May thought no more of the barrier which still stood between them even in their almost perfect love and confidence. She, in her clear unquestioning faith, was apt to lose sight too much of the use and value of beauty and love and life, which are as directly gifts from God as faith, and to wonder, with something like anguish, when she thought how completely they had possession of her husband, what the end would be. But now that the fulness and perfection of a woman’s life was promised her, she, too, for a little felt the sweetness and strength of living. She was a woman, and the crown of womanhood was coming to her; the divine miracle was near its fulfilment. She was alone in the hush of evening, beneath the opening stars, with her husband, and things human and divine seemed so mingled together, that neither failed of their completeness.
The next few days passed very peaceably. May, who had been rather languid and out of spirits in London, soon regained her serene health. She and Tom strolled together in the woods or drove out for an hour or two every day. Ted and his father were with them a good deal, and Tom, who had rather overworked himself in the last few weeks, found a new pleasure in hanging about doing nothing. May insisted on his going long rides or walks, in which she herself could not join, and after spending the morning quietly in the woods with Tom, or paddling about on the lake exploring the little creeks and islands, she would send Tom and Ted off together in the afternoon for a long tramp or a ride over the Surrey downs.
They had spent one of these afternoons, about a week after they had come to Applethorpe, in this manner, and about four o’clock had descended on to a little red-backed village standing in a hollow of the downs, surrounded by hop-gardens and strawberry fields, and having had tea in the country inn, proceeded homewards. Their way lay through the village street with its neat white cottages, and long strips of garden fronting the road. In one were flowering clumps of primroses, and a border of merry daffodils lay underneath the windows. In another a more ambitious show had been planned, and sundry little wooden labels, stuck about in beds of young fresh green, not yet in flower, promised a crop of annuals. In another a box hedge, cut into fantastic shapes, gave a genteel privacy, and marked it off from its neighbours. The little Norman church stood at the bottom of the street, and just as they passed the gate a group of mourners came away from a grave which the sexton was filling in. Tom waited for them to pass, and stood a moment watching them ascend the street. They went in, he noticed, at the house with the box hedge. A moment afterwards the clergyman, who knew Tom, came out, and as they stopped to speak to him, Tom asked what the funeral had been.
“A poor woman here,” he said, “who died in childbed two days ago. Poor thing! she leaves her husband, such a nice young fellow, quite alone. They had only been married nine months.”
Tom turned angrily round on the astonished young man.
“How can you say such horrible things?” he said, and walked off, followed by Ted, at five miles an hour.
Ted caught him up in a few moments, and made him abate his pace.
“Poor old boy,” he said, “don’t get in such a state about it!”
They walked on a few moments in silence.
“It’s all too horrible,” broke out Tom at length. “How can such things be? Poor darling! And I have been such a brute to her. Our lives are lived apart really. She thinks the passion of my life is no more than a plaything sent to amuse us, and the passion of hers is unintelligible to me. It is no more than a beautiful unconvincing fable.”