Any one who has ever by any chance remembered knows how sweet the pastime may be. Sometimes I think that heaven must be a place where some of the things that have been will be again. No wonder that as we drove on our delayed mission for those two who sat expectant and adoring in our rose garden, a throng of phantoms of delight came about us and held us very near. No wonder that the tall horse, obeying his own will, took this road and that road, leading us farther and farther in those fragrant ways until at last where the highway ran through a little hollow at the foot of a forbidding hill he stopped altogether, minded to take the tops of some tender green, cool in the shade. I recall the ditches of yellow sweet clover and the drone of the honeybees.
The hollow was on the edge of Chynmere village. Across the green we saw the parish church, white in its elms and alders. I noted absently that a smart trap and a satin horse waited outside the iron fence and that several figures were emerging from the chapel door where the white-haired rector lingered.
“We can ask those people,” suggested Pelleas, “for the shortest cut back to the Hall. I’m afraid the time is getting on.”
He gathered up the lines and drove leisurely across the springing turf. A song sparrow was pouring out its little heart from the marsh land beyond the church and the sounds of the afternoon were growing every moment more beloved. Everything was luring to delight, and here were Pelleas and I alone of all the world—save Dudley Manners and this Miss Wortley—seeking to postpone a great happiness.
“Dudley Manners,” said I out of the fullness of my heart, “must be a kind of ogre. And as for this Miss Wortley, I dare say she is a regular Nichola.”
At this Pelleas said something so softly that I did not hear and drew rein beside the smart trap in which a man and a woman coming from the church had just taken their places. And when I looked up I saw the man turning toward us a face so smiling and so deliciously abashed that it bewildered my recognition, until—
“Dudley Manners!” cried Pelleas. “The very man I am searching the county for.”
And to this Dudley Manners said:—
“I say, Pelleas—you’re a bit late—but how in the world did you guess?”
“Guess?” said Pelleas, puzzled. “Guess you?”