No other words expressed it. Here, surely the angels of God might tread with unsoiled feet.
"Does not everything of earth seem to fall away," came Aura's voice all hushed and quiet, "and leave one ... free at last!"
She was out of the car standing, her sandalled feet just touching the carpet of hyacinths, her hands stretched out towards them, her face full of absolute undimmed joy. "See!" she continued, "the dear things grow on to our very path--we won't hurt them, will we? Let us walk on to the house and see Martha, then I will take you through a path in the woods to the best place of all." She paused and looked at him curiously. "Ned--what is it? Something is wrong! What is it?"
"There is nothing wrong," he answered quietly, "and I may as well tell you here as elsewhere. Martha is not at the house."
She paled a very little. "She is not there," she echoed; "why?"
"Because I sent her away."
"You sent her away?"
"Yes! because I wanted to be alone with you--and--we are alone--alone with nothing but our love between us--for you do love me? Aura!" he cried, his quiet giving way as he seized her hands and drew her towards him. "Why should we go back to all the grime--to the dull, useless, foolish life? Come with me! No one wants us, no one will miss us, not even Ted! It has all been a mistake from the beginning. There is but one way to set things straight--to leave him free to do as he chooses--come----"
"My poor Ned!"
She stood unresisting before him, with all the motherhood that was in her, looking at him through eyes that brimmed over with tears, and her voice, full of an overwhelming pity, smote on his ears, a knell to all his hopes. He knew it, he felt it to be so even as he listened. He let her hands fall with a sense of impotence to hold her.