"And let it last for hours," exclaimed they all.
Gerald begged the rest of the audience to go away, but they refused to budge an inch. So the story began. All the characters appeared in due order; it lasted a long time, and everybody was delighted.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Lilias Wyndham never forgot that last Sunday with Gerald spent at Jewsbury-on-the-Wold. The day in itself was perfect, the air blew softly from the west, the sun shone in a nearly cloudless heaven; the gentle breezes, the opening flowers, the first faint buds of spring on tree and hedge-row seemed all to give a foretaste of summer. Nobody knew, none could guess, that in one sense they foretold the desolation of dark winter.
It was in this light that Wyndham himself regarded the lovely day.
"I leap from calm to storm," he said to himself. "Never mind, I will enjoy the present bliss!"
He did enjoy it, really, not seemingly. He took every scrap of sweetness out of it, almost forgetting Valentine for the time being, and living over again the days when he was a light-hearted boy.
He went to church twice, and sat in the corner of the square family pew which had always been reserved for him. As of old, Lilias sat by his side, and when the sermon came he lifted little Joan into his arms, and she fell asleep with her golden head on his breast. The rector preached and Gerald listened. It was an old-fashioned sermon, somewhat long for the taste of the present day. It had been carefully prepared, and was read aloud, for the benefit of the congregation, in a clear, gentlemanly voice.