‘Can nothing happen now to part us, John?’ Laura asked, while they were sitting on a ferny bank waiting for the coach. ‘Are our lives secure from all evil in the future?’
‘Who can be armed against all misfortune, love?’ he asked. ‘Of one thing I am certain. You are my wife. Against the validity of our marriage of to-day no living creature can say a word.’
‘And the legality of our previous marriage might have been questioned?’
‘Yes, dearest, there would have always been that hazard.’
CHAPTER XXI.
HALCYON DAYS.
There were no bonfires or floral arches, no rejoicings of tenantry or farm labourers, when John Treverton and his wife came home to Hazlehurst Manor. They came unannounced one fine July afternoon, arriving in a fly hired at Beechampton, much to the distress of Mrs. Trimmer, who declared that there was absolutely nothing in the house. Yet many an anxious city housekeeper would have considered the noble array of hams, pendant from the massive beams of the kitchen ceiling, the flitch of bacon, the basket of new-laid eggs, the homely saffron-hued plum cakes, the dainty sweet biscuits, the ox tongues and silver side of beef in pickle, the chickens waiting to be plucked—worthy to count as something.
‘You might have sent me a telegram, mum, and then I might have done myself credit,’ said Mrs. Trimmer, dolefully. ‘I don’t believe there’s a bit of fish to be had in Hazlehurst. I was in the village at twelve o’clock this blessed day, and there was one sole frizzling on the slates at Trimpson’s, and I’ll warrant he’s been sold by this time.’
‘If he isn’t sold he must be pretty well baked, so we won’t have anything to say to him,’ said John Treverton, laughing. ‘Don’t worry yourself about dinner, my good creature; we are too happy to care what we eat.’
And then he put his arm round his wife’s waist and led her along the corridor that ended in the book-room, where she had left him in his despair seven little months ago. They went into this room together, and he shut the door behind them.