They stood looking down on Roger. Death revealed no significance in him. The smallness of his head, the indefinite colour of his hair, palliated what had occurred and made them feel incredulous of their knowledge that presently much importance would be attached to it.
Richard breathed a deep sigh of relief. "Well, it's all cleared up now," he murmured. "It is as if she had never seen Peacey...."
Ellen broke into sobs. "'Tis I who made you do it. I thought of my poor mother and how she'd suffered through not making my father think of her first and last—and you were sitting there thinking of nothing but Marion—and I knew if you heard what Roger was saying about us you'd think of me, so I made you listen. If I hadn't given you yon dunts on your shoulders you never would have heard him and never would have killed him. Oh, my love, what I have done to you, and me that would have died rather than hurt you! But I saw my mother plain—"
"Oh, between our mothers ..." he said wearily, and hushed her in his arms. Bitterly he broke out: "If we could have lived our own lives!"
"My love, my love, don't spoil our little time together...."
"But there's nothing left."
"There's nothing left, Richard, so go on kissing me."
"Wait." He drew away from her and held up his forefinger. "There's something still."
He looked, Ellen thought, very like Marion as he stood there, his eyes roving about her face. Because his shoulders were bowed his body looked thick like a tree-trunk; his swarthiness had the darkness of earth in it and the gold of ripe corn; and his gaze lay like a yoke on its object.
"There's something still," he whispered. A sudden joy flamed in him.