“Ernest,” went on Dorothy, “you remember what you told me when you asked me to marry you in Titheburgh Abbey, about your belief that your affection for Eva would outlast this world. Do you still believe that?”
“Yes, Doll, to a great extent.”
His wife sat and thought for a minute.
“Ernest,” she said presently.
“Yes, dear.”
“I have managed to hold my own against Eva in this world, when she had all the chances and all the beauty on her side, and what I have to say about your theories now is, that when we get to the next, and are all beautiful, it will be very strange if I don’t manage to hold my own there. She had her chance, and she threw it away; now I have got mine, and I don’t mean to throw it away, either in this world or the next.”
Ernest laughed a little. “I must say, my dear, it would be a very poor heaven if you were not there.”
“I should think so, indeed. ‘Those whom God hath joined together let not man put asunder’—nor woman either. But what is the good of our stopping here to talk such stuff about things of which we really understand nothing? Come, Ernest, Jeremy and the boys will be waiting for us.”
And so hand in hand they went on homeward through the quiet twilight.