One day they went down to the Manse, Lily riding upon Rory, and her husband walking by her side. “You can say I have just come over for the day,” he said. “The minister of course knows very well, but your friend Miss Helen——”
“Why should we tell lies about it, Ronald? Isn’t it very easy, very easy to understand?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, “in any case it’s easy to understand; but we might as well avoid gossip if we could.”
“There would be no gossip,” cried Lily, “about a man coming to see his wife! The only thing would be that folk would wonder why he did not take her home.”
“Folk would wonder about something, you may be sure; but I’ve noticed that ladies think less of that than men. You think it is natural that people’s minds should be occupied with you, my bonnie Lily. And so it is; but not with a common man. Maybe it is the jealousy that’s in human nature. I hate the chance of it, you see!”
He spoke with a little vehemence, and Lily’s eyes filled with tears. It was almost approaching the border of a first quarrel. “You and me,” she said plaintively, “though I would not have believed it, Ronald, do not always think the same.”
“Did we ever think the same? No, Lily. But so long as we feel the same—and it’s best to be on the safe side. I’ll say I have come over for the day from—what do you call that place?—Ardenlennie, on the other side, where I had to see Sir John’s man of business—which is true. And I found you coming out to pay your visit and came with you. Will that do?”
“Oh, it will do as well as any other—false story,” said Lily, “if we are to go on telling lies all our days!”
“Not all our days, I hope,” he said gently. He was very good to her. No lover could have been more devoted to her service, with no eyes or ears but for her. That ride, though Lily was not happy in the depths of her heart, though she was fretted almost beyond endurance, was yet sweet to her in spite of herself. “Do you mind how we careered along that other day, me riding, you running,” he said, “pushing at Rory behind, and pulling him before, and the poor little beast astonished with the weight on him of a long-legged chield instead of a bonnie lady? My Lily, what you did for me that day! What should I have done without you—at that or any other time?”
“You have to do without me—not that I think I am much good—when you go away.”