"My wife! It—it sounds strange on my lips, doesn't it?"
"I love the way you say it!" sighed Diana, and with such a look in her eyes that I clasped her to me and she, all unresisting, gave up her lips to mine. So, for a space, we forgot all but ourselves and I grew blind to all but her beauty, deaf to all but her voice.
"O Peregrine!" she sighed. "O Peregrine, I never thought love could be so—wonderful!"
"In three weeks you will be mine utterly, Diana—in three weeks!"
"I am now, Peregrine. I could never love—never, never marry any one but you. I never meant to marry because I never thought I could love any man—but now—O Peregrine!"
"Dear," said I, "if—if anything should happen to separate us, could you—would you always love me?"
"Always, Peregrine, always and for ever. Hark, there is some one coming."
Faint and far rose the sound of hoofs and, glancing up, I espied the distant forms of two equestrians and also observed that the perspicacious Diogenes, quick to heed and take advantage of our lapse, had halted to crop and nibble busily in the shade of a great tree that stretched one mighty branch protectingly above us.
"People are coming, Peregrine."
"I know, but they are still very far off; besides we are in the shade—kiss me again, Diana."