"I should crush the brute," I cried.

"Yes. They have crawled over you and you are indignant. They have not crawled over me, and I am curious."

"But, sir, will you allow a man no disinterested moral emotion?"

"As much as he will, and he shall be cool at the end of it," smiled the Vicar. "Now if they took my benefice from me again!" Stooping down, he picked up the creature in his hand and fell to examining it very minutely.

"I wonder you can touch it," said I in disgust.

"You did not quit the Court without some regret, Simon," he reminded me.

I could make nothing of him in this mood and was about to leave him when I perceived my lord and Barbara approaching the house. Springing up, I ran to meet them; they received me with a grave air, and in the ready apprehension of evil born of a happiness that seems too great I cried out to know if there were bad tidings.

"There's nothing that touches us nearly," said my lord. "But very pitiful news is come from France."

The Vicar had followed me and now stood by me; I looked up and saw that the ugly creature was still in his hand.

"It concerns Madame, Simon," said Barbara. "She is dead and all the town declares that she had poison given to her in a cup of chicory-water. Is it not pitiful?"

Indeed the tidings came as a shock to me, for I remembered the winning grace and wit of the unhappy lady.

"But who has done it?" I cried.

"I don't know," said my lord. "It is set down to her husband; rightly or wrongly, who knows?"

A silence ensued for a few moments. The Vicar stooped and set his captive free to crawl away on the path.

"G.o.d has crushed one of them, Simon," said he. "Are you content?"

"I try not to believe it of her," said I.

In a grave mood we began to walk, and presently, as it chanced, Barbara and I distanced the slow steps of our elders and found ourselves at the Manor gates alone.

"I am very sorry for Madame," said she, sighing heavily. Yet presently, because by the mercy of Providence our own joy outweighs others' grief and thus we can pa.s.s through the world with unbroken hearts, she looked up at me with a smile, and pa.s.sing her arm, through mine, drew herself close to me.

"Ay, be merry, to-night at least be merry, my sweet," said I. "For we have come through a forest of troubles and are here safe out on the other side."

"Safe and together," said she.

"Without the second, where would be the first?"

"Yet," said Barbara, "I fear you'll make a bad husband; for here at the very beginning--nay, I mean before the beginning--you have deceived me."

"I protest----!" I cried.

"For it was from my father only that I heard of a visit you paid in London."

I bent my head and looked at her.

"I would not trouble you with it," said I. "It was no more than a debt of civility."

"Simon, I don't grudge it to her. For I am, here in the country with you, and she is there in London without you."

"And in truth," said I, "I believe that you are both best pleased."

"For her," said Barbara, "I cannot speak."

For a long while then we walked in silence, while the afternoon grew full and waned again. They mock at lovers' talk; let them, say I with all my heart, so that they leave our silence sacred. But at last Barbara turned to me and said with a little laugh:

"Art glad to have come home, Simon?"

Verily I was glad. In body I had wandered some way, in mind and heart farther, through many dark ways, turning and twisting here and there, leading I knew not whither, seeming to leave no track by which I might regain my starting point. Yet, although I felt it not, the thread was in my hand, the golden thread spun here in Hatchstead when my days were young. At length the hold of it had tightened and I, perceiving it, had turned and followed. Thus it had brought me home, no better in purse or station than I went, and poorer by the loss of certain dreams that haunted me, yet, as I hope, sound in heart and soul. I looked now in the dark eyes that were, set on me as though there were their refuge, joy, and life; she clung to me as though even still I might leave her. But the last fear fled, the last doubt faded away, and a smile came in radiant serenity on the lips I loved as, bending down, I whispered:

"Ay, I am glad to have come home."

But there was one thing more that I must say. Her head fell on my shoulder as she murmured:

"And you have utterly forgotten her?"

Her eyes were safely hidden. I smiled as I answered, "Utterly."

See how I stood! Wilt thou forgive me, Nelly?

For a man may be very happy as he is and still not forget the things which have been. "What are you thinking of, Simon?" my wife asks sometimes when I lean back in my chair and smile. "Of nothing, sweet,"

say I. And, in truth, I am not thinking; it is only that a low laugh echoes distantly in my ear. Faithful and loyal am I--but, should such as Nell leave nought behind her?