ONE:Rose had begun to question her attitude towards her husband. She had hitherto never doubted for a moment that she loved himof course she loved him! But now she asked herself"If I love him, how is it that our most tender moments have never meant so much to me as that second kiss of Handshut's?" None of Reuben's kisses stood out in her memory as that kiss,[Pg 287] he had never made the thrill of life go through her, he had never filled her heart to bursting with joy so infinite that it was sorrow, and sorrow so exquisite that it was joy. She would observe Reuben, and she would see himold. He was fifty-four, and his hair was grey; there were crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes, and straight lines between his brows, where he had furrowed them as the pitiless sun beat down upon his face. There were other lines too, seamed and scored by hard struggles. He was strong as an ox, but she told herself he was beginning to move a bit stiffly. He had exposed himself so ruthlessly to the wet and cold that his joints had become rheumatic. It was nothing very much, but he liked to have her rub them occasionally, and up till then she had liked it too. Now she suddenly saw something dreary and preposterous in ithere she was married to a man thirty years older than herself, his chattel, his slave. She did not really love himhow could she, with all those years between them? She was fond of him, that was alland he was getting older, and horribly cantankerous; and she was youngoh, God! she had never known till then how young."My Lord De Boteler," said Edith, stepping forward, and looking full at the baron. "It is unlawful to send armed men, in the open day, without warrant, save your own will, to attack the house of a faithful vassal and set his life in jeopardy. Had you sent a messenger in peace, Edith Holgrave would have obeyed the mandate. There was little need of all this tumult to take an aged woman, whom He knoweth is innocent, and whom you, Lord of Sudley, in your own breast"
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ONE:There was a lamb there on the last evening in February, its tiny body and long, weak legs all rosed over with the glow. Above it Richard crouched, grammar in hand. There had been a lull in the snowstorm during the afternoon, but now once more the wind was piping and screaming over the fields and the whiteness heaping itself against the wall.They walked on down the lane. Rose's chatter had ceased, and a complete silence dropped between the hedges. The moon had risen higher, and the western hazels were bloomed with light. The moon was no longer crimson in the dark sky, but had burnt down to copper, casting a copper glow into the mists, staining all the blues that melted into one another along the hills. Only the middle of the lane was blacklike a well. Reuben[Pg 248] and Rose could see each other's faces in a kind of rusty glimmer, but their feet stumbled in the darkness, and her hand lay clutching and heavy on his arm.
