‘That you—that those whose home it really is, should own it once again. I would gladly leave it now to let you come into it.’
‘That is generously said, and I thank you for it,’ said Jerome, in a voice not altogether unmoved. His eyes looked gratefully into hers. He took her hand, and carried it to his lips. Nita thrilled from head to foot. Was this the same world as the world of twenty-four hours ago?
‘To know that goes as near as anything can to reconciling me to my inevitable loss,’ he said, still in a low tone, as they resumed their way.
They left the solitary, silent river walk, dangerous in its beauty and its associations, for the more prosaic regions of the kitchen-garden. While they waited for the gardener to come, Nita said:
‘Don’t let me keep you here. I shall be ever so long; and then I have to go to the farm. You will want to go down to Monk’s Gate, I daresay.’
‘I do; but I am emboldened to ask a favour of you, first.’
‘What is that?’
‘When you have quite finished your business here, will it be too much to ask you to come down to Monk’s Gate, and give me a little advice? There is some furniture in it, but I don’t know whether it can be used. I am a man, you see, and naturally helpless in such a case. If you did not mind very much——’
‘I shall be delighted. I will come down as soon as ever I have finished. Shall I find you there?’
‘You will find me there. If not in the house, in the garden; and if not in the garden, in the house. Thank you, very much.’