over the oaks. Quickly she got up and arranged herself; she was tidy. Then she went to the door of the hut.
All the lower wood was in shadow, almost darkness. Yet the sky overhead was crystal. But it shed hardly any light. He came through the lower shadow towards her, his face lifted like a pale blotch.
"Shall we go, then?" he said.
"Where?"
"I'll go with you to the gate."
He arranged things his own way. He locked the door of the hut and came after her.
"You aren't sorry, are you?" he asked, as he went at her side.
"No! No! Are you?" she said.
"For that! No!" he said. Then after a while he added: "But there's the rest of things."
"What rest of things?" she said.
"Sir Clifford. Other folks. All the complications."
"Why complications?" she said, disappointed.
"It's always so. For you as well as for me. There's always complications." He walked on steadily in the dark.
"And are you sorry?" she said.
"In a way!" he replied, looking up at the sky. "I thought I'd done with it all. Now I've begun again."
"Begun what?"
"Life."'
"Life!" she re-echoed, with a queer thrill.
"It's life," he said. "There's no keeping clear. And if you do keep clear you might almost as well die. So if I've got to be broken open again, I have."
She did not quite see it that way, but still. . .
"It's just love," she said cheerfully.
"Whatever that may be," he replied.
They went on through the darkening wood in silence, till they were almost at the gate.
"But you don't hate me, do you?" she said wistfully.
"Nay, nay," he replied. And suddenly he held her fast against his breast again, with the old connecting passion. "Nay, for me it was good, it was good. Was it for you?"
