consciously asked of hers as
he helped her over the rough places, each expression his eyes looked for
in hers--she gave them all. For here was that rarest of rare things, a
man to whom all could be given without his prizing less highly gift or
giver.

Long after she had gone to bed he would walk the fields and make sweet
picture-plans, all centred tenderly round her. He would stand and look
up at her window when the light in it was out, picturing the room, the
freshness, the delightful girlishness of it, and at this intimacy of
thought he would redden in the dark. His sense of humour was in
abeyance, and the reality, could he have seen it, would have been a
shock to him--the dressing-table a litter of cosmetics and pin-curls;
and on the pillow the face of Blanche surrounded by wavers and shiny
with cold-cream.

On this golden morning Ishmael found Blanche, as she had meant him to,
in the garden at Paradise, the sun turning her ashen hair to fire.

"Don't let's waste a minute of to-day," he said. "We'll have the cart
out and not come back till the evening--that is, if you care about it?"

"Of course I care about it," she told him, and ran upstairs to pin on a
shady hat and powder her face.

"Shall I speak now? Shall I speak now?" thought Ishmael as he drove down
the lane; but with a thrill of anticipation came "No--my hands aren't
free." For Mrs. Penticost's cob, a nervous, spirited creature, newly
broken in, was between the shafts.

"Will he speak yet?" thought Blanche; "and if he does, what shall I
say?" She glanced up at the set, earnest face, and, sensitive to her
look, his eyes met hers. He averted his gaze quickly, but his heart
sang, "She cares! she cares!" And quite suddenly he felt he wished to
postpone speaking as long as possible, that the savour of this suspended
bliss was too sweet to lose. A tremor ran through Blanche as their eyes
met. She recognised that in him was an austerity against which even she
could beat in vain.

It was evening by the time they drove back, and the shadows lay cool and
long across the roads. Urged on by visions of his snug stall, the pony
went like the wind; neither of the two in the cart spoke much: once he
bent down to tuck the rugs more closely round her and his hand, touching
hers, lingered a moment. When they drove into the little yard, Lylie,
the dairymaid, was mixing barley-meal and scald-milk for the pigs and
carrying on bucolic flirtation with Billy Penticost. With