"I have told him," Father John had whispered to her only a moment before. "I have told him, so that he will not fear prison—either for himself or for you."
And she had come to him quietly, all of the pretty triumph and playfulness gone, so that she stood like an angel in the soft glow of the skies, much older than he had ever seen her before, and smiled at him with a new and wonderful tenderness as she held out her hands to him.
Not until she lay in his arms, looking up at him from under her long lashes, did he dare to speak. And then,
"Is it true—what Father John has told me?" he asked.
"It is true," she whispered, and the silken lashes covered her eyes.
Her hand crept up to his face in the silence that followed, and rested there; and with no desire to hear more than the three words she had spoken he crushed his lips in the sweet coils of her hair, and together, in that peace ands understanding, they listened to the gentle whisperings of the night.
"Roger," she whispered at last.
"Yes, my Newa—"
"What does that mean, Roger?"
"It means—beloved—wife"