‘I wish——’ she began.
‘What do you wish, my beloved wife?’ he asked, laying one hand, as if in blessing, on her head. ‘I hope it is something nice, for, you know, whatever it is you wish I shall be unable not to wish it too.’
She smiled, and sighed, and nestled close.
‘Darling Stephen,’ she murmured; and after a moment said, with another sigh, ‘I wish mother didn’t miss father.’
‘Yes,’ said Stephen. ‘Indeed I wish it too. But,’ he went on, stroking the long lovely strands of her thick hair, ‘we must make allowances.’
XVI
The next morning Catherine went to church for the last time—for when Stephen was in London, and not there to invite her to accompany him, which he solemnly before each separate service did, there would be no more need to go—and for the last time mingled her psalms with Mrs. Colquhoun’s.
The psalms at Morning Prayer were said, not sung, and she was in the middle of joining with Mrs. Colquhoun in asserting that it was better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in man, which at that moment she was very willing to believe, when she felt she was being stared at.
She looked up from her prayer-book, but could see only a few backs, and, one on each side of the chancel, Stephen and Mr. Lambton tossing the verses backwards and forwards across to each other, as if they were a kind of holy ball. She went on with her psalm, but the feeling grew stronger, and at last, contrary to all decent practice, she turned round.
There was Christopher.