“Glad,” she replied. “I was intensely happy on our honeymoon; oh! what lovely places we have seen; how grand and magnificent the world is! It has been sunshine inside and out ever since I gave myself to you.”
“And yet you want to leave it all and to go home,” he said.
“I do. I love you so much that to see you at home must be the best of all; to live with you at home must be the sweetest of all.”
“You are mistaken,” he said, but he said it low, and the inaudible words never reached his lips.
“Pack, child, now,” he said. “Our wearisome journey begins to-morrow.”
A day or two later, the Rowtons arrived at Rowton Heights in Yorkshire. Nancy had never been in this part of the country, and her excitement and delight reached the utmost bounds as they approached nearer and nearer to their destination.
“You must tell me all about the place?” she said when they drove in through the gates of the long winding avenue.
“Oh! what are all those people doing?” she exclaimed suddenly; “they have torches and they are coming to meet us.”
“Some of the tenants on the estate, I presume,” said Rowton. “I expect Maberly, my steward, has been getting up a little display. Never mind, Nancy, it is in your honour.”
“In mine,” she said in astonishment; “how very sweet of them!”