y sorry for Madame," said she, sighing heavily. Yet presently,
because by the mercy of Providence our own joy outweighs others' grief
and thus we can pass through the world with unbroken hearts, she looked
up at me with a smile, and passing her arm, through mine, drew herself
close to me.

"Ay, be merry, to-night at least be merry, my sweet," said I. "For we
have come through a forest of troubles and are here safe out on the
other side."

"Safe and together," said she.

"Without the second, where would be the first?"

"Yet," said Barbara, "I fear you'll make a bad husband; for here at the
very beginning--nay, I mean before the beginning--you have deceived me."

"I protest----!" I cried.

"For it was from my father only that I heard of a visit you paid in
London."

I bent my head and looked at her.

"I would not trouble you with it," said I. "It was no more than a debt
of civility."

"Simon, I don't grudge it to her. For I am, here in the country with
you, and she is there in London without you."

"And in truth," said I, "I believe that you are both best pleased."

"For her," said Barbara, "I cannot speak."

For a long while then we walked in silence, while the afternoon grew
full and waned again. They mock at lovers' talk; let them, say I with
all my heart, so that they leave our silence sacred. But at last
Barbara turned to me and said with a little laugh:

"Art glad to have come home, Simon?"

Verily I was glad. In body I had wandered some way, in mind and heart
farther, through many dark ways, turning and twisting here and there,
leading I knew not whither, seeming to leave no track by which I might
regain my starting point. Yet, although I felt it not, the thread was in
my hand, the golden thread spun here in Hatchstead when my days were
young. At length the hold of it had tightened and I, perceiving it, had
turned and followed. Thus it had brought me home, no better in purse or
station than I went, and poorer by the loss of certain dreams that
haunted me, yet, as I hope, sound in heart and soul. I looked now in the
dark eyes that were, set on me as though there were their refuge, joy,
and life; she clung to me as though even still I might leave her. But
the last fear fled, the last doubt faded away, and a smile came in
radiant serenity on the lips I loved as, bending down, I whispered:

"Ay, I am glad to have come home."

But there was one thing more that I must say. Her head fell on my
shoulde