He was silent, and Miss Boyle spoke again, moving slowly over the long grass.
"Do you put flowers sometimes on her tomb?"
The Earl smiled. Her words did not jar; he could be sentimental himself. The garden and her company were both fitted to make him fall in with her delicate moods.
She did not give him time to compose an answer.
"I have some roses here I want you to take back with you—for that—her tomb."
She pointed out a tree on the edge of the rose-garden laden with heavy white blooms, then sank to one knee beside it, and, taking a pair of scissors from her basket severed the thick and thorny stems. As the roses fell one by one upon the grass, my lord felt the tears sting his eyes. He bent over her impulsively.
"Selina," he said, in an unsteady voice, "Selina, will you not lay flowers there yourself?"
She raised her face and looked at him.
"I am not likely to be in London," she answered.
He recollected that London, after the crash their marriage must involve, would not indeed be their home.