"Surely it can be our own sweet secret, dearest."
She laid her cheek against his arm, in a dumb gesture of surrender, and her little bare left hand crept up and rested like a white rose petal against the blackness of his coat.
He laid his own upon it. "Poor little hand without a wedding ring," he said.
And now the numbness seemed to engulf her, to break——
"Hush, Leila, dear one."
But she could not hush. That very morning they had slipped the wedding ring over a length of narrow blue ribbon, and Barry had tied it about her neck. To-morrow, he had promised, she should wear it for all the world to see.
But she was not to wear it. It must be hidden, as she had hidden it all day above her heart.
"Leila, you are making it hard for me."
It was the man's cry of selfishness, but hearing it, she put her own trouble aside. He needed her, and her king could do no wrong.
So she set herself to comfort him. In the month that was left to them they would make the most of their happiness. Then perhaps she could get Dad to bring her over in the summer, and he should show her London, and all the lovely places, and there would be the letters; she would write everything—and he must write.