Her eyes were full of light.

“Yet men must live by bread.”

She set the pitcher on the grass, opened the saddle-bags, and spread their supper on the grass. Martin stood and watched her, mute, frowning, like a man breathless from a sudden pain at the heart.

“Mellis!”

“Dear lad?”

“I have been thinking.”

She went on calmly with her work, cutting the bread with a knife she had brought from Marvel’s cottage, and spreading honey upon the slices.

“What troubles you, Martin?”

He did not answer for a moment. She knelt, looking up at him; the obstinate anguish in his eyes betrayed to her all that was in his heart.

“Come, you are tired; you shall eat and sleep.”