He shut the house-door, and they turned into a path to the rear of the cottage. For some distance this road, too, was skirted on both sides by fields of ripened corn. John passed his hand thoughtlessly over the heavy ears, and now and then pulled one up, and swung it round in the air. Neither of them spoke, and for a long while there was no other sound but the rustle of their steps.
The path at length turned aside and led to a high plateau that overlooked the valley, in which deep shadows were already beginning to fall. Blue mists crept over the foot of the mountains, while their tops were yet lit up by the sun. The smoke from the chimneys rose up into the air, and the shouts of the village children, playing on the meadow, faintly came up from below. There under that great oak, the only tree for some distance around, John had first asked Margery to be his wife. Involuntarily the steps of both faltered as they drew near the spot, but neither stopped. Margery glanced up at John; she could not see his face, for his head was turned, and he seemed to be attentively looking at something down in the valley.
Another turn in the road, and the small cemetery, with the white stones that gleamed between the dark cypress-trees, rose up before them. In silence they found their way to the little grave. John seated himself, without a word, on a mound opposite, Margery knelt down and pulled some dried leaves off the rose-tree she had planted, and bound the ivy further up on the white marble cross. She felt that John watched her, but did not look up at him. Though she tried hard to keep them back, the tears would fill her eyes again and again, so that she could hardly see to pluck up the few weeds that had grown among the grass. When that was completed, she covered her face with her hands and tried to pray. She wanted to ask that John might be happy while she was away, and that,—but her head swam round, and she found no words. She raised her eyes, and glanced at John through her fingers. He sat with his back toward her now, but she saw that his great, strong frame trembled with half-suppressed sobs.
"O John!" she cried, bursting into tears. She only noticed yet that he suddenly turned around, and then closed her eyes, as he clasped her in his arms. For a time she heard nothing but the sound of her own low weeping, and the throbbing of John's heart. Suddenly she looked up, and said,—
"O John, dear, dear John, please, please forgive me!"
"Margery," he answered, in as firm a tone as he could command, "don't talk so."
"Oh, but, John, I did not want to go away only because the house was so lonely, but because,—because,"—
"Because what, Margery?" he asked, astonished.
"O John, because I—I thought you loved Mary better than me, because I saw you together so many times in the last weeks; and she kissed your hand last night."
John's clasp about Margery relaxed, and his arms sank down by his side. His tears were dried now, and his earnest blue eyes fixed upon Margery with a dumb, half-unconscious expression of surprise and pain. She could not bear the look, and covered her face with her hands again.