Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/150

138 She never so much as thought of telling him that she was married. She saw no reason for it. It was her rôle to enter into his life, not to dazzle him with visions of hers.

At last that happened which was bound to happen. And it happened under the shadow of a great rock, in a cleft, green-grown and sheltered, where the road runs beside the noisy, stony, rapid, unnavigable river. He had drawn the cart up on the grass, and she had got down and was sitting on a stone eating sandwiches, for her nurse had persuaded her to take her lunch with her so as to spend every possible hour on these life-giving moors. He had eaten bread and cheese standing by the horse's head. It was a holiday. He was not selling fish and vegetables. He was in his best, and she had never liked him so little. As she finished her last dainty bite he threw away the crusts and rinds of his meal and came over to her.

"Well," he said, with an abrupt tenderness that at once thrilled and revolted her, "don't you think it's time as we settled something betwixt us?"