it.

"So it's over," he said under his breath, as he looked through the
lacework of ivy on the small greenish panes to the desolate November
fields, "and I've been a damn fool for the asking!"

At the end of the week Blossom returned to the mill, and on the
afternoon of her arrival, Gay met her in the willow copse by the brook.
To the casual observer there would have appeared no perceptible change
in his manner, but a closer student of the hearts of lovers might
have drawn an inference from the fact that he allowed her to wait
five minutes for him at the place of meeting. True, as he explained
passionately, his mother had asked for him just as he was leaving the
house, and it was clearly impossible that he should refuse his mother!
That he was still ardent for Blossom's embraces was evident to her
glance, but the affair was settled, the mystery solved, and there was no
longer need that he should torment himself. That the love of his kind is
usually a torment or nothing had not, at this stage, occurred to either
of the lovers. He was feeling strongly that, having conducted himself
in so honourable a manner there was nothing more to be expected of him;
while she assured her heart that when his love had proved capable of so
gallant a sacrifice, it had established the fact of its immortality. The
truth was that the fire still burned, though the obstacles, which had
supplied fuel to the flames, were consumed, and a pleasant warmth rather
than a destroying blaze was the result. Had Gay sounded the depths of
his nature, which he seldom did, he would have discovered that for him
passion was a kind of restlessness translated into emotion. When the
restlessness was appeased, the desire in which it had revealed itself
slowly evaporated.

"How is your mother?" was Blossom's first eager question, "oh, I do hope
she is better!"

"Better, yes, but we're still awfully anxious, the least shock may kill
her--Aunt Kesiah and I are walking on pins and needles. How are you,
Beauty? Did you enjoy your visit?"

He kissed her lips, and she clung to him with the first expression of
weakness she had ever shown.

"How could I when it ended like that?"

"Well, you're married anyway--that ought to satisfy you. What does it
feel like?"

"I can't believe it--and I haven't even any ring."

"Oh, the ring! If you'd had it, you'd have dropped it about somewhere
and let out the secret."

"I wish it had been in church and before a clergyman."