hink that she would not be unhappy because
he had chosen Leam and not herself.

Yes, this was Leam's day, her one spell of perfect happiness--the day
whereon there was no past and no future, only the glad sufficiency of
the present--a day which seemed as if it had been lent by Heaven, so
great was its exquisite delight, so pure its cloudless, shadowless
sunshine of love.

Leam neither knew nor noted how the neighbors looked. They had somehow
gone far off from her: when they spoke she answered them mechanically,
and if she passed them she took no more heed than if they had been so
many sheep or dogs lying about the grass. She only knew that she
was with Edgar--that she loved him and that he loved her. It was a
knowledge that made her strong to resist the whole world had the whole
world, opposed her, and that dwarfed the families into insignificant,
almost impersonal, adjuncts of the place, of no more consequence than
the ferns growing about the fallen stones. Not even Adelaide could jar
that rich melodious chord to which her whole being vibrated. It was
all peace, contentment, love; and for the first and only time in her
life Leam Dundas was absolutely happy.

The two lovers, always together and apart from the rest, wandered
about the ruins till evening and the time for dispersion and
reassembling at the rectory came. The sunset had been in accord with
the day, golden and glorious, but after the last rays had gone heavy
masses of purple clouds that boded ill for the morrow gathered with
strange suddenness on the horizon. Still the lovers lingered about
the ruins. The families had left them alone for the latter part of the
time, and they discussed now Leam's forwardness as they had discussed
before Edgar's intentions. But neither Edgar nor Leam took heed. They
were in love, and the world beyond themselves was simply a world of
shadows with which they had no concern.

It had been such a day of happiness to both that they were loath to
end it, so they lingered behind the rest, and tried, as lovers do, to
stop time by love. They were sitting now on one of the fallen blocks
of stone of the many scattered about, he talking to her in a low
voice, "I love you, I love you," the burden of his theme; she for the
most part listening to words which made the sweetest music discord,
but sometimes responding as a tender fainter echo. He did not see
the eyes that were watching him from behind the broken wall, nor the
jealous ears th