“The times are sad,” said she, evasively. “I wish this war were ended. I wish we were quite away from ever hearing of it any more.”
“I wish,” he said, drawing nearer to her, “that I could spirit you right away to a country where all would be peace and sunshine. If I had the right to protect you, all should be as you would have it. Let us build castles in the air of a happy life in sunny France away from all these troubles.”
She laughed at such a notion. “Why, I have never been farther than Bristol in all my life,” she said, lightly. “And the mere sight of the ships sailing away to foreign parts made me feel a craving to be at home again in Herefordshire.”
“But Gloucestershire is a right homelike county,” said Norton, “and not far off. Do you understand how I love you, how I long to have you in my home there?”
She shook her head. “I do not want to leave my uncle,” she said, feeling round for some excuse.
“Well, well, but he cannot live for ever,” said Norton, impatiently. “It is in the natural order of things that you should leave him; and, spite of his white hair, he is but in middle life, and may yet himself marry.”
“Then I should go back to Hereford, and try to grow like dear Mrs. Joyce Jefferies, who lives to make others happy.”
“You can make others happy now,” said Norton, and she was forced to listen to his impassioned appeal the whole way home. Half-frightened and wholly perplexed as to her own mind; she was thankful to gain the village, and avoiding the street, opened the south-east gate of the churchyard that they might cross to the Vicarage garden unobserved. But to her discomfort she found on approaching the old stone cross that Peter Waghorn was standing in the path apparently wrapt in contemplation of the symbol to which he so much objected.
As they passed he turned his gleaming eyes full upon them, and though she gave him a cheerful “Good morning,” he made no reply, only touching his hat in a grudging and reluctant fashion.
“A plague on that fellow,” said Norton; “he is enough to give any one a fit of the ague only to look on. But, for heaven’s sake, take pity on me and give me what I have pleaded for so humbly.”