CHAPTER XLIV.
“Trouthe is the heighest thing that men may kepe.”
—Chaucer.
“Truth is God’s child, and the fortunes of truth are God’s care as well
as ours.”
—Bishop Phillips Brooks.
The little room in the church tower had become curiously dear to Gabriel. Its bare walls, its bell ropes, its dusty rafters and the narrow window half veiled by ivy, were associated with those happy days when life and health gradually returned, and Hilary, with all her old winsomeness, and with that new and half-wistful humility which changed her from a self-willed child to a noble woman, grew hourly more precious to him.
One day, however, nearly six weeks after the Battle of. Ledbury, he noticed how thin her hands were growing, and, looking more searchingly into her face, thought less of its beauty and more of the dark shadows round her eyes.
“You are pale and weary, dear heart,” he said, caressing the hand that had done so much for him. “These long weeks have overtaxed you.”