'Can anything touch that?' she said under her breath.
'Do you know,' he said presently, his voice dropping, 'that it is only a month to our wedding day? Oh, my wife, have I kept my promise—is the new life as rich as the old?'
She made no answer, except the dumb sweet answer that love writes on eyes and lips. Then a tremor passed over her.
'Are we too happy? Can it be well—be right?'
'Oh, let us take it like children!' he cried, with a shiver, almost petulantly. 'There will be dark hours enough. It is so good to be happy.'
She leant her cheek fondly against his shoulder. To her life always meant self-restraint, self-repression, self-deadening, if need be. The Puritan distrust of personal joy as something dangerous and ensnaring was deep ingrained in her. It had no natural hold on him.
They stood a moment hand in hand fronting the cornfield and the sun-filled west, while the afternoon breeze blew back the man's curly reddish hair, long since restored to all its natural abundance.
Presently Robert broke into a broad smile.
'What do you suppose Langham has been entertaining Rose with on the way, Catherine? I wouldn't miss her remarks to-night on the escort we provided her for a good deal.'
Catherine said nothing, but her delicate eyebrows went up a little. Robert stooped and lightly kissed her.