“There’s one thing I’m minded to say, Harry. I’m afraid Jean mustn’t go to the factory any more—not till you’re married, that is.”
As both the girl and her lover exclaimed against the cruel decision, Dr. Maclean clinched the matter.
“Your aunt’s quite right,” he said firmly. “Grendon’s the greatest place for gossip in England.”
“We don’t mind gossip.”
Dr. Maclean looked gravely at the two fine-looking young people standing before him in the lamplight.
Harry Garlett had never looked his age, and now, to-night, he looked years younger than yesterday. As for Jean, not only her radiant face, but her supple, graceful figure seemed transfigured—she looked a lovely ageless nymph no sorrow or decay could touch.
“I fancy that even you would mind being spied on and sniggered at,” said the doctor dryly.
And so there began for those two who loved one another so dearly a strange period of mingled pain and bliss. They hated to be apart, and yet they were not allowed to be together in what seemed to them both the only seemly, natural way—that in their joint everyday work.
Mrs. Maclean showed what even Jean considered an almost absurd fear of what even the people of Terriford might say. She did not like the lovers to stray outside the large garden and paddock of Bonnie Doon, and she ordained that “for the present” the engagement should remain private.
Small wonder that at the end of about ten days Miss Prince asked inquisitively: “Why has Jean left off going to the factory?”