"One must do something for those who risk so much for one," he said, and laughed a little.
The first surprise over, the joy of that moment was beyond the gift of speech. Her arms encircled his neck, and she looked up at his face in silence and with brightening eyes.
"And so you found the time long and tedious?" he said.
"I had no one to talk to," she said, with a blank expression.
"Why, you ungrateful little thing! you had good Mrs. Drayton here, and her son, and all the smart young fellows of Hendon who came to drink at the bar and say pretty things to the little bar-maid, and--"
"It's not that--I had no one who knew you," she said, and dropped her voice to a whisper.
"But you go out sometimes--into the village--to London?" he said.
"It's not my eyes. But, never mind. Oh, I knew you would not forget me. Only sometimes of an evening, when the dusk fell in, and I sat by the fire all alone, something would say, 'He doesn't want me,' 'He won't come for me.' But that was not true, was it?"
"And then when the children came--the neighbor's children,--and I put the little darlings to bed, and they said their prayers to me, and I tried to pray, too--sometimes I was afraid to pray--and then, and then," (she glanced round watchfully and dropped her voice) "something would say, 'Why didn't he leave me alone? I was so happy!'"
"You morbid little woman! You shall be happy again--you are happy now, are you not?" he said.
Her eyes, bleared and red, but bright with the shafts of love, looked up at him in the dumb joy that is perfect happiness.
"Ah!" she said, and dropped her comely head on his breast.
"But you should have taken walks--long, healthy, happy walks," he said.
"I did--while the roses bloomed and the dahlias and things, and I saved so many of them against you would come, moss roses and wild white roses; but you were so long coming and they withered. And then I couldn't throw them away, because, you know, they were yours; so I pressed them in the book you gave me. See, let me show you."
She stepped aside eagerly to pick up a little gilt-edged book from the table in the inner room. He followed her mechanically, hardly heeding her happy prattle.
"And was there no young fellow in all Hendon to make those lonely walks of yours more cheerful?"