“God go with you both, sir, and may you be happy!”
Peter Gladden climbed to the back seat. The whip cracked, the horses strained at the traces, the heavy wheels ground into the gravel. The great coach rolled away on its high springs, leaving the old house bowered up amid its trees, moated by shrubs and the thousand faces of its flowers. Dick Wilson ran to the end of the terrace, flapping a red-cotton handkerchief. Jeffray, leaning out of the window, waved to him in turn, Bess looking over her lover’s shoulder. Wilson was still standing there when a cedar hid the gardens and terrace-way from sight. Gable and chimney-stack and lozenged-casement sank away behind the trees; only a faint trail of blue smoke in the heavens showed where the old house stood.
Jeffray, with a melancholy light in his brown eyes for the moment, sighed and turned back towards Bess. She was leaning forward slightly, her elbows resting on her knees, her head thrown back, her white throat showing. She seemed oblivious for the moment of Jeffray’s presence.
“Bess.”
She dropped her hands with a start, and lay back in the coach, looking at him very dearly.
“Well, we are on the road,” said the man, smiling.
Her lips quivered, her eyes flashed up to his.
“To-night we shall be at Lewes.”
“Yes.”
“And to-morrow we shall see the sea.”