night following, and the next, and next; till, almost without their
being aware, five days had slipped by in absolute seclusion, not a
sight or sound of a human being disturbing their peacefulness, such
as it was. The changes of the weather were their only events, the
birds of the New Forest their only company. By tacit consent they
hardly once spoke of any incident of the past subsequent to their
wedding-day. The gloomy intervening time seemed to sink into chaos,
over which the present and prior times closed as if it never had
been. Whenever he suggested that they should leave their shelter,
and go forwards towards Southampton or London, she showed a strange
unwillingness to move.

"Why should we put an end to all that's sweet and lovely!" she
deprecated. "What must come will come." And, looking through the
shutter-chink: "All is trouble outside there; inside here content."

He peeped out also. It was quite true; within was affection, union,
error forgiven: outside was the inexorable.

"And--and," she said, pressing her cheek against his, "I fear that
what you think of me now may not last. I do not wish to outlive your
present feeling for me. I would rather not. I would rather be dead
and buried when the time comes for you to despise me, so that it may
never be known to me that you despised me."

"I cannot ever despise you."

"I also hope that. But considering what my life has been, I cannot
see why any man should, sooner or later, be able to help despising
me.... How wickedly mad I was! Yet formerly I never could bear to
hurt a fly or a worm, and the sight of a bird in a cage used often to
make me cry."

They remained yet another day. In the night the dull sky cleared,
and the result was that the old caretaker at the cottage awoke early.
The brilliant sunrise made her unusually brisk; she decided to open
the contiguous mansion immediately, and to air it thoroughly on such
a day. Thus it occurred that, having arrived and opened the lower
rooms before six o'clock, she ascended to the bedchambers, and was
about to turn the handle of the one wherein they lay. At that moment
she fancied she could hear the breathing of persons within. Her
slippers and her antiquity had rendered her progress a noiseless one
so far, and she made for instant retreat; then, deeming that her
hearing might have deceived her, she turned anew to the door and
softly tried the handle. The lock was out of order, but a piece of