Page:Quiller-Couch - Noughts and Crosses.djvu/103

Rh  I speak in prayer-meeting what I hold, that life's a dull pilgrimage to a better world. If you ask me, sir, to-night, I ought to say the same. But a man may break out for once; and when so well as on his honeymoon? For a week I've been a free heathen: for a week I've been hiding here, living with the woman I love in the open air; and night after night for a week Annie here has clothed herself like a woman of fashion. Oh, my God! it has been a beautiful time—a happy beautiful time that ends to-night!"

He set down the fiddle, crooked up a knee and clasped his hands round it, looking at Annie.

"Annie, girl, what is it that we believe till to-morrow morning? You believe—eh?—that 'tis a rare world, full of delights, and with no ugliness in it?"

Annie nodded.

"And you love every soul—the painted woman in the streets no less than your own mother?"

Annie nodded again. "I'd nurse 'em both if they were sick," she said.

"One like the other?"