It was late on the evening of her wedding-day that Anne entered once more the drawing-room of the little inn at Bramhurst and stopped by the open window.
There was a scent of musk in the room behind her, and an odour infinitely more alluring of roses and honeysuckle in the garden in front. Beyond the garden the common lay in the rosy dusk of the afterglow under a deep blue sky. The clang of a distant cow-bell came dreamily through the silence.
She stood leaning against the door-post with her face to the night. It was a night of wonder, of marvellous, soul-stilling peace. Yet her brows were slightly drawn as she waited there. She seemed to be puzzling over something.
"Say it out loud," said Nap.
She did not start at the words though he had come up behind her without sound. She stretched out her hand without turning and drew his arm through hers.
"Why did we choose this place?" she said.
"You didn't choose it," said Nap.
"Then you?"
"I chose it chiefly because I knew you hated it," he said, a queer vibration of recklessness in his voice.
"My dear Nap, am I to believe that?"