"You and your husband get along better. You are quieter. I have not heard you quarrel for some time."
"There's good in Oliver," she said.
"I thought so," he murmured. "But I have not been able to bring it out."
He went to see the aconites, but they were cold, and made him shiver. It was warm innocence he wanted, not the purity which numbed; and, down below, the slopes were naked, the path rustled with dead oakleaves, and the pixy-water was in flood. The violence of the world was there, and nothing could drive it out.
"Is your wife well, Oliver?" he asked. "I heard a sound in your room early this morning. It seemed to me she was ill."
Vorse was uprooting bracken, which is hard labour, and he made no pause when his master spoke.
"I ha' never knowed she better," he answered.
"She frets less. There is a womanliness about her now which is pleasant. You, also, have very much improved. You speak to her gently. You do not drink now?"
"Her made me give it up."
"Had I nothing to do with it?"