"Oh, no, no, no. You're a splendid iniquity, but not mine, I vow."
"This woman of yours never lived till you made her. I profess Miss Lambourne was ever known for a dull cold thing born 'to suckle fools and chronicle small beer.'"
"So she wrote me down her property. Egad, ma'am, it was very natural."
"You know what you have made of me," Alison said.
"God knows what you'll make of me. And now in the matter of the ring—"
"Oh Lud, what a trivial thing is a man!" She drew off her glove and held out a hand with two rings on it. "Marry me with which you will." One was a plain piece of gold, paler than the common, carved into an odd device of a snake biting its tail.
"With thine own ring I thee wed," Harry said, and took it off. "I take you to witness, Mrs. Alison, the snake was in your paradise before I came."
They were across the heath now and going down the steep, narrow lane beyond. The chapel of the Hampstead marriages stood raw red beside a garden with lawns and arbours shaggy in winter's untidiness. Even the tavern at the gate, a spreading one-story place of timber, looked dead and desolate.
Harry forced open the sticking door and strode in, Madame Alison loitering behind. He was met by a dirty lad whose gaping clothes were half hidden by a leather apron, and whose shoes protruded straw—a lad who smelt of the stable and small beer.
"Where's the priest?" said Harry.