“So you are going back to-morrow,” she said.

“Yes.... Hark! There’s the sweetbriar again,” and he began to sing triumphantly:

“And I will come again, my Love,

Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.”

He turned and looked at her with strangely shining eyes: “I hear you through the wall, getting up and going to bed every night and every morning. It makes me feel sick sometimes, like the smell of iodoform at the front; that’s a nice way of putting it!” and again he laughed wildly: “like the smell of sweetbriar! like the smell of the mass! Good-night,” and he got up hurriedly and strode towards the house. Then he came back: “Get up and come in,” he said gently; “it’s getting cold and damp,” and he pulled her up with a cool, firm hand.

They went in, lit their candles in the hall and said good-night at their bedroom doors; quietly, distantly.


CHAPTER IX

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