overflow--she gloried in the waste! And let the lean years come,--she
defied them to-day.

"Oh, Hugh!" she faltered.

"My dearest!" he cried, and would have seized her in his arms again but
for a look of supplication. That he had in him this innate and
unsuspected chivalry filled her with an exquisite sweetness.

"You will--protect me?" she asked.

"With my life and with my honour," he answered. "Honora, there will be no
happiness like ours."

"I wish I knew," she sighed: and then, her look returning from the veil,
rested on him with a tenderness that was inexpressible. "I--I don't care,
Hugh. I trust you."

The sun was setting. Slowly they went back together through the paths of
the tangled garden, which had doubtless seen many dramas, and the courses
changed of many lives: overgrown and outworn now, yet love was loth to
leave it. Honora paused on the lawn before the house, and looked back at
him over her shoulder.

"How happy we could have been here, in those days," she sighed.

"We will be happier there," he said.

Honora loved. Many times in her life had she believed herself to have had
this sensation, and yet had known nothing of these aches and ecstasies!