Page:The Country-House Party.djvu/32

24 relief. 'I thought I married John, and had grown old.'

'You could not, you were not made for John,' the other answered. 'He is like the quiet sheep who browse in the valley, and we are as the wild goats that leap upon the hills.'

'I dreamt you had gone from me without a sign. I dreamt you were but a light lover, prone to forget, and John, so faithful and so kind, had at last won the promise you did not care to ask. I dreamt I worked for him and for his home, sewing and cooking and cleaning for more than twenty dull years. Let me forget, if it was a dream.'

She looked upon her finger-tips for the signs of the needle-pricks. They were pink and smooth.

'Why, what a dream!' she laughed; 'what a dream! He would have made a good husband, poor John, but he would have bored me beyond words, beyond all words!'

She looked at the strong youth before her, and saw the shadows of the changing day flit across his brow.

'I must return,' she said wistfully, 'to the