Page:Life's little ironies (1894).pdf/119

is—not between me and her! Now I'll say no more, But, oh, my ernel one, I think I have one claim upon you!”

She did not say what, and he drew her towards him, and bent over her, “If it wag all pure invention in those letters,” he said, emphatically, “‘ give me your cheek only. If you meant what you said, let it be lips. It is for the first and last time, remember !”

She put up her month, and he kissed her long. “You forgive me?” she said, crying.

“ Yes. ”

“ But you are ruined

“What matter!” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“It serves me right!”

She withdrew, wiped her eyes, entered and bade good-bye to Anna, who had not expected her to go so soon, and was still wreatling with the letter. Raye followed Edith down-stairs, and in three minutes she was in a hansom driving te the Waterloo station,

He went back to his wife. “Never mind the letter, Anns, to-day,” he said, gently, “Put on your things; we, too, must be off shortly.”

The simple girl, upheld by the sense that she was indeed married, showed her delight at finding that he was aa kind as ever after the disclosure, She did not know that before his eyes he beheld as it were a galley, in which he, the fastidious urban, was chained to work for the remainder of his life, with her, the unlettered peagant chained to his side.

Edith travelled back to Melchester that day with a face that showed the very stupor of grief. The end of her impassioned dream had come. When at dusk she reached the Melchester station her husband was there to meet her, but in bis perfunctoriness and her preoccupation they did not see each other, and she went out of the station alone.