She had often thought with faint envy of the unknown woman whom some day he might love, and all the time she was that woman!
The little dried flower had betrayed his secret, and the knowledge of it sent a wave of such happiness through her heart that for an instant she felt as if she were floating on clouds far above all the bitter disappointments and disillusionments that marriage had brought her.
For the first time in her life Chris no longer had a place in her thoughts. She gave herself up to the sweetness of a dream that could never be realized—the wonder of complete happiness.
"Marie," said a voice behind her, and she looked up with dazed eyes to her husband's face.
She had not heard his step over the soft grass, and he was close beside her as with trembling fingers she thrust the papers and odds and ends back into Feathers' coat.
"I was just coming back," she said. She tried desperately to control her voice, but her agitated heartbeats seemed somehow to have got hopelessly mixed up with it. "Mr. Dakers left me his coat, and the things all fell out of the pocket—I hope I've found them all."
She scrambled up.
"Let me take it," Chris said. She made a little involuntary 198 movement as if to refuse, then gave it to him silently.
That old tweed coat had suddenly grown dear to her—more dear than anything else in the world. She averted her eyes, so she should not see the careless way in which Chris slung it over his arm.
She walked along beside him without speaking, hardly conscious of his presence. Her thoughts were all in the clouds, her pulses were still throbbing.