tricia dreamt and knew it not. She kept her
wonted state, or, rather, with a quiet insistence he kept it for her. He
never addressed her save as "Madam," and he cared for her comfort, and
in all things bore himself towards her with the formal courtesy he would
have shown a queen. He said to himself, "Godfrey Landless, Godfrey
Landless, thou mayst forget much, perhaps, for a little while; but not
this! If thou dost, thou art no honorable man."

Master of himself, he walked beside her, cared for her, tended her,
guarded her, served her as if he had been a knight-errant out of a
romance, and she a distressed princess. And she rewarded him with a
delicate kindliness, and a perfectly trustful, childlike dependence upon
his strength, wisdom, and resource. All her bearing towards him was
marked by an inexpressible charm, half-playful, wholly gracious and
womanly. The lady of the manor was gone, and in her place moved the
Patricia Verney of the enchanted forest--a very different creature.

Thus they fared through the dying summer, and were happy in the present
of soft sunshine, tender haze, fantastic beauty. Sometimes they walked
in silence, too truly companions to feel the need of words; at other
times they talked, and the hours flew past, for they both had wit,
intelligence, quick fancy, high imagination. Sometimes their laughter
rang through the glades of the forest, and set the squirrels in the oaks
to chattering; sometimes in the melancholy grace of the evening when the
purple twilight sank through the trees, and the large stars came out one
by one, they spoke of grave things, of the mysteries of life and death,
of the soul and its hereafter. She had early noticed that he never lay
down at night without having first silently prayed. There had been a
time when she would have laughed at this as Puritan hypocrisy, but now,
one dark night, when the noises of the forest were loud about them, and
the wind rushed through the trees, she came close to him and knelt
beside him. Thenceforward each night, before they lay down beside their
fire, and when from out the darkness came all weird and mournful sounds,
when the owl hooted, and the catamount screamed, and the long howl of
the wolf was answered by its fellow, he stood with bared head, and in a
few short, simple words commended them both to God. "I will both lay me
down in peace and sleep, for Thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell in
safety."

There came a day when they sat down