"I knew as ’ee meant summut to me, sir, as—as somehow it seemed as if ’ee belonged to me and I to thee."
She dropped her eyes, her hands seemed to flutter in his and he said nothing, could not, for he did not know what to say, but he realised that she had put into words that which was in his own mind, in his own knowledge, just as he had meant something to her so had she meant something to him. He had known that in some strange way they belonged to each other.
He spoke, to break the silence that had fallen rather than for any other reason.
"You were unhappy with your grandmother?"
"Terribul, terribul unhappy I were wi’ she, sir, for her willed me to marry Abram."
"Abram, aye, Abram Lestwick, sir, whom I du hate and de-test most terribul."
"Grandmother willed me to marry him, sir, but I would not and she be very wrathful wi’ I."
"Poor little soul," he said gently. "Betty, it seems to me that strange and perhaps foolish dreams have—have come to both of us here in this old garden, and we must put those dreams out of our minds, and face life, child, as it really is. Just now you reminded me that I am your lady’s husband and I am, and proud and happy that so good and sweet a woman should be my wife——"
"Good and sweet her be, there bain’t none like she; I would die for her willing, I would."
"And I think I too, Betty, and so—so—" he paused to listen—out of the darkness there came voices.
"Wonderful air, isn’t it? I don’t know any air like this. Get a smell of the sea in it, don’t you, Cutler, my boy?"
Allan dropped the little hands. He felt suddenly ashamed, felt as though he were about, to be detected in some wrong-doing, and yet, Heaven above knew, that there had not been one wrong thought in his brain.
He would have told her to go, but it was unnecessary. Very quickly and suddenly she snatched at one of his hands, he felt it pressed for a moment against burning lips and then she had gone. He heard the soft rustling of her gown among the bushes, the light tap of her little shoes, and then the heavier stolid tread of his father’s honest feet.
Allan dropped onto the stone bench, and there, a minute later Sir Josiah found him.
"Why, who’s here, Allan, Allan, my boy—is it you?"
"Yes, father, come here to dream in the old garden. Won’t you and Mr. Cutler sit here and finish your cigars?"