"I am the judge of that," she said softly. And looking up he saw the colour in her cheeks fluttering, and two bright tears in her eyes. Timidly she took one hand away from him and began to stroke back the hair from his brow.
"You look so tired!"—she murmured—"as though you had been in trouble.
And I wasn't there!"
"You were always there!"
And springing from his lowly seat, he came to the rock beside her, and drew her within the shelter of his cloak, looking down upon her with infinite tenderness.
"You don't know what you're undertaking," he said, his eyes moist, his lips smiling. "I am an old bachelor, and my ways are detestable! Can you ever put up with the pipes and the dogs? I am the untidiest man alive!"
"Will Anne ever let me touch your papers?"
"Goodness! what will Anne say to us! I forgot Anne," he said, laughing. Then, bending over her, "We shall be poor, darling!—and very uncomfortable. Can you really stand it—and me?"
"Shall we have a roof over our heads at all?" asked Mary, but so dizzily happy that she knew but vaguely what she said.
"I have already bespoken a cottage. They are going to make me Editor of the Modernist. We shall have bread and butter, dearest, but not much more."
"I have a little," said Mary, shyly.