His mind recoiled on happier things. Catherine felt it, and was comforted.
“I often went to Farley as a child.”
“The memory suits you, dear. I can see a little, golden-headed woman sitting in the sunlight in one of those black old pews.”
“I was like our Gwen, but more noisy.”
“Gwen cannot do better than repeat her mother.”
The moon sailed high over Marley Down when husband and wife returned to the cottage. The old village woman whom Catherine had hired had lit the lamp in the small drawing-room, and the warm glow flooded through the casement upon the flowers and the dew-drenched grass. Catherine wandered to the piano, her husband lying in the chair before the open window. She played and sang to him, the old songs she had sung when they had been betrothed.
She rose at last, and, bending over him, put her arms about his neck, while his hands held hers.
“I am going to bed.”
“Dustman, eh?”
“And you?”