The phrase struck Robert as familiar. But what did phrases matter? She was yielding.
“You love me, then?” he urged, trembling.
“Yes, Fergus,” she said in her low, vibrating voice. “Yes, it is love—and I didn’t know it. You have revealed me to myself.”
He kissed her passionately. “Call me by my own name,” he said, rising, still with his arm about her, and drawing her to her feet.
“Dear Robert!” she murmured as he rained kisses on her hair. He was standing with his back to the narrow archway cut in the hedge, and her face was hidden against his shoulder.
It was at that moment that Cecily and Mayne reached the entrance to the yew garden. For one second Cecily stood motionless, then without a word she moved on past the narrow archway, and continued walking parallel to the hedge on the outward side. Mayne followed her, embarrassment for the moment so strong within him that there was no room for any other emotion.
Cecily did not speak. She and Robert had loved the yew enclosure better than any other part of the garden. All the times they had sat there together came before her now. She saw them as a drowning person is said to review the scenes in his past life. She saw the sunshine on the grass on hot summer afternoons. She smelled the roses. She thought of moonlit nights. She remembered one night,—soon after their marriage,—moonless, but full of stars, when she had sat with Robert on the bench under the hazels.... All at once she turned to Mayne.
“I shall find my armor useful,” she said, in a clear, steady voice. “Thank you so much for recommending it. We can get into the house at the other door.”
CHAPTER XI
THE Kingslakes had been in town nearly eight months. They had taken a flat in Westminster, and Cecily had been thankful for the work entailed by the move. She was thankful to leave the Priory; thankful even to part from her beloved garden. The whole place seemed to her desecrated, besmirched. That for the heights, as for the depths, of human happiness and human woe the same scene should be set, may be sport for the gods. For the actors in the drama it is agony, and it was with relief unspeakable that Cecily set her face towards London and a different existence.