‘Mary, Mary . . .’ he whispered to her, rejoicing in the sound of her name. But his voice was strange, distant, thick with passion, and his clasping hands could not be certain that they held her. They followed every curve of her body, seeking to know if it were really she. His tongue stumbled on phrases that had never come to him before.
‘Mary, my little one, my beauty! Did I use you rough? Did I hurt you?’
She shook her head and smiled back at him, full of content. She herself, shyly daring, allowed her hands to caress his head, stroking his hair, his ears, his neck. And the light contact of her fingers maddened him, finding strange nerves that had never felt before, awakening new yearnings.
At last she opened her eyes.
‘The lamp’s flaring,’ she said, in a curious, toneless voice. Smiling gently she freed herself from his arms and turned down the wick. He followed her, feeling that she was escaping him. Never again should she escape him. Obedient to his will she came back to him.
‘Us bain’t gooin’ to wait for the parson, bin’ us?’ he said, and when she would not answer: ‘Durs’n’t you, wench? We’ve waited above a bit, us two!’
‘There’s the children,’ she said, lowering her eyes. ‘I thought I heard Morgan cry out in his sleep.’
‘Bless them!’ he said. ‘And don’t I love every bone in their bodies as if they was my own?’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know. And they’re so fond of you.’
‘It’s because they’m yours,’ he said. ‘So what does it matter?’