“My darling,” I exclaimed, “why trouble yourself over what are merely melancholy fancies? We are happy in each other’s love; therefore why should we anticipate evil? If it comes, then we will unite to resist it.”
“Ah, yes, Owen,” she replied quickly, “but this strange feeling came over me yesterday when we were together at Whitby. I cannot describe it—only it is a weird, uncanny feeling, a fixed idea that something must happen to mar this perfect happiness of ours.”
“What can mar our happiness when we both trust each other—when we both love each other, and our two hearts beat as one?”
“Has not the French poet written a very serious truth in those lines: ‘Plaisir d’amour ne dure qu’un moment; chagrin d’amour dure toute la vie’?”
“Yes, but we shall experience no chagrin, sweetheart,” I assured her. “After another week here we will travel where you will. If you wish, we will go to Carrington. There we shall be perfectly happy together, away in beautiful Devonshire.”
“I know you want to go there for the shooting, Owen,” she said quietly, yet regarding me somewhat strangely, I thought. “You have asked Mr. Marlowe?”
“With your permission, dearest.”
But her face changed, and she sighed slightly.
In an instant I recollected the admission that they had either met before, or at least they knew something concerning each other.
“Perhaps you do not desire to entertain company yet?” I said quickly. “Very well; I’ll ask your father; he and I can have some sport together.”