He rose up to his awkward length from the chair into which he had dropped on hearing her knock and went close to her.
"I shall never be free again in this world," he said. And then, with a change of tone: "Do you suppose I am going to let you go over there a free woman?"
He drew her almost roughly to him.
"I have always loved you," he said.
"And I," she answered, "I have loved you since I was sixteen."
"My one woman!" he cried in a rapture.
CHAPTER XXVI
GOLDEN DAYS
The time went peacefully with Nelly and the mother in the little house among the Sussex woods. And presently, since Nelly showed no indication of wishing to join them, and could not be spared indeed, and since Robin was plainly ill at ease yachting up and down the coast, the General declared his intention of going off to a grouse-moor in Scotland, rented by an old friend, over which he had shot year after year for many years back.