‘I have promised to be your wife, and I am going to keep my promise,’ she said, gravely.
‘Then I am happy. Shall it be soon, dearest?’
‘It shall be when you like after the new year.’
‘And am I to leave the army?’
‘No,’ she answered, quickly. ‘I am proud of your profession. I should be very sorry if for my sake you were to exchange the career of a soldier for the stagnation of a country gentleman’s life.’
‘There would be no stagnation for me at Culverhouse; yet I had much rather remain in the army. But is my profession to separate us? You may not like to go to India.’
‘It will be my duty to go with you.’
‘My love, I have no words to say how happy you have made me. It would have been a grief to give up my profession, but I would have done it without a word, in obedience to your wish.’
‘A wife should have no wish about serious things in opposition to her husband,’ answered Beatrix.
They were at Culverhouse Castle before dusk, and again the village gossips were bobbing to Beatrix, this time with the assurance, derived from Betty Mopson’s direct assertion, that she was to be their Lady Bountiful, the source of comfort and blessing at Christmastide, and in all time of trouble.