‘O Madge!’
He could say nothing more; the man’s soul was in that whisper. Their hands were clasped: they were looking into each other’s eyes: the world seemed to sink away from them; and the woman’s devotion changed the winter into summer, changed the man’s ruin into success.
He drew her arm within his; and they walked past the blackened walls of the Manor, and along the paths where they had spent so many pleasant hours during his recovery from the accident with the horse, to the place where he had thrown off the doctor’s control and got out of the wheel-chair.
‘I am not so sorry now for what has happened,’ were his first words. ‘It is worth losing everything to gain so much.’
‘But you have not lost everything, Philip.’
‘No; I should say that I have won everything. I am glad to have saved Wrentham from penal servitude, for his frauds have enabled me to realise the greatest of all blessings—the knowledge that come what may you can make me happy.’
‘And I am happy too,’ she said softly, their arms tightening as they walked on again in silence.
By-and-by he lifted his head, and seemed to shake the frost from his hair.
‘The doctor said I ought to have rest. I have got it from you, Madge. I can look straight again at the whole botheration—thank you, my darling.’ (A gentle pressure on his arm was the answer, and he went on.) ‘The arrangement offered by Beecham is a very good and kind one, which will enable me in course of time to clear myself whilst carrying out my scheme; we can take a small house; Mr Shield will live with us, and we must try to make him comfortable. Then we need not wait for the end of next harvest, unless you still insist’——
‘No, Philip; when you bid me come to you, I am ready.’