They clung to each other, kissing fondly, tears in the eyes of both.
“But why are you walking, Oliver? Did you come to Crabb?”
“Yes,” he said. “I thought I might as well walk; I did not think it was quite so far. The porter will send on my things.”
There was just a year between them; Oliver would be twenty-one in a month, Jane was twenty-two, but did not look as much. She took his arm as they walked home.
As she halted at the little gate, Oliver paused in surprise and gazed about: at the plain wooden palings painted green, which shut in the crowded, homely garden; at the old farmhouse.
“Is this the place, Jane?”
“Yes. You have not been picturing it a palace, have you?”
Oliver laughed, and held back the low gate for her. But as he passed in after her, a perceptible shiver shook his frame. It was gone in a moment; but in that moment it had shaken him from head to foot. Jane saw it.
“Surely you have not caught a chill, Oliver?”