At first, the inside of the shell-like Abbey with the beautiful name was a disappointment. The green grass was encumbered with tasteless graves and flat modern stones which looked as if they had lain down there without permission.
We wandered about rather forlornly for a while, until we found Devorgilla's thirteenth-century tomb. Sir S. told me her history, and waked the sad old place to living interest. I seemed to see the ever-loving lady, followed by her chosen maidens carrying the heart in its ebony and silver box. And together we made up a theory, that of every event _something_ reminiscent lingers on the spot where it happened. If only our eyes were different, we should be able, wherever we went, to see filmy, mysterious pictures painted on air--fadeless, moving photographs of all the people and all the deeds which have made up the world's history.
This set us talking of our own pictures, which we are leaving behind us as we go through life; and I couldn't help thinking how he and I, in accordance with this idea, will for ever and ever go on being "married" at Gretna Green. I laughed at the thought, and he asked me why, so I told him.
"When you're marrying your real wife, years from now maybe, and have forgotten my existence, that scene will still be enacting itself," I said, "not only on the films the photograph men took, but on air films. Doesn't it frighten you?" I asked.
"Doesn't it frighten you?" he echoed. "Because you will marry. I never shall."
"If I can't have the wife I want, I'll have none."
"Perhaps you can have the one you want if you ask her nicely."
"I don't intend to ask. I'm not the right one for her."
"You might let her decide that!" I nobly said, for Mrs. West may be the woman. "I do hope, if men ever love me, they'll tell me so."
"No fear! They will." He laughed more loudly than I have heard him laugh.
"But the right one mayn't, if he thinks as you do."
"He won't. He'll be thinking only of himself. But look here, my girl, be sure you _do_ take the right one when you marry; for if in my opinion you're likely to make a big mistake when the time comes, I may be tempted to put a spoke in the fellow's wheel."
"You think I'm joking," he said, watching me in a way he has, between narrowed lids, his eyes almost black in the twilight. "And so I am to a certain extent. Yet I might forbid the banns, perhaps--if I chose."