She looked at him for an instant—cropped hair, shoddy clothes, blunted nails, the evasive stamp of something new and perplexing on his handsome face:
“Edred!”
She was looking apprehensively down the long garden path which ran between the box edgings. Jethro might come in. Then she again turned her eyes with an effort toward the tall figure in the deplorable suit of ginger-colored tweed. In spite of herself, an expression of ecstasy broke across the cloud above her eyes. She half rose, put out her hand, peaked her head toward him. He gave a quick glance round; listened. Everything was still, but for the lambs and birds and insects; no sound of human life, no clink or clatter from the kitchen. He stepped up lithely to the chair, lifted her in his long arms, and kissed her—a long kiss which told volumes—full on the mouth. With that kiss, fully returned, each told the history of the weary months the prison had stolen.
She let herself lie for a moment in his arms, caring for nothing in the world but that first re-union which she had so often imagined, so often longed for. Then she roused herself.
“Why did you come?” she said reproachfully. “Oh, my darling, why did you come and spoil everything?”
He shrugged.
“We don’t know that anything is spoilt yet. I wouldn’t stand in your light for worlds. Tell me how you came here. Give me my cue.”
“Come into the other room. We shall be quieter there.”
He followed her through the low door into the room which the yew shadowed. They were no longer in the sun; something damp, melancholy, and threatening struck at them both.
“Sit down,” she said, pointing nervously to a chair, taking one herself, and throwing a quick glance at the brass face of the tall clock. “I—I didn’t know you were out. I thought that it would be another six months——”