Thus Bess and Jeffray rode into Rodenham together, while the scent of the wet grass floated on the warm air, and the great cedars smelled of Lebanon. The storm shower had beaten down the grass in places, so that in the dim light it seemed like the swirling eddies of a restless sea. A night-jar whirred in the beechwoods above the road. Rabbits scurried hither and thither. Jeffray could faintly see the heads of his deer rising above the bracken on the edge of the wood. Soon the old house, black-chimneyed, a pile of shadows, with here and there a window gleaming, rose up before them out of the east. Bess drew her breath in deeply, seeing that his eyes were fixed upon the place. She was wondering whether he was sad at leaving such a home to go alone with her into strange lands. “Of what are you thinking?” he asked her, suddenly. “I was thinking of that,” she said, pointing to the house. “Yes.” “Can you leave it all for me?” “Why not?” he asked, with no wavering of his words. “It is your home.” “And will be yours.” “Ah—” “Some day, when the clouds are gone. We are young yet; we can take our home with us in our hearts.” She looked at him very dearly, yet with some sadness in her eyes. “I am wondering,” she said. “Yes, what are you wondering, Bess?” “Whether I can make you happy, I who am so poor and ignorant.” “I have no doubts,” he said, “no doubts whatsoever.” As they rode up to the terrace with the gardens and shrubberies dim and full of perfume under the night sky, Dick Wilson and Gladden came out from the porch. Wilson gave Jeffray a hearty hail, running forward with out-stretched hand, his eyes twinkling below the bandages that swathed his head. “Egad, sir,” he said, “I am glad to see you alive. The wilful man has won his way.” Jeffray had dismounted, but Bess was still on her horse looking down half shyly, half haughtily at the painter, as though mistrusting the good-will of her lover’s friend. Wilson, who had the instinct of chivalry quick and warm under his ugly exterior, went to her with a twinkle in his eyes, and, bowing in the most impressive fashion, took her hand and kissed it. “May I ask your pardon, madam,” he said, quaintly, “for having proved such a dunderhead of a fellow this afternoon?” Bess eyed him questioningly. “You have been wounded?” she asked. “A slight cut, a slight cut across the pate with a hanger. I am a clumsy fool at my weapons. May I have the honor of helping you to dismount?” Bess was down beside him before the words were half passed his lips. She stood at her full height before the painter, the light from one of the windows falling on her face. Wilson understood of a sudden how this tall, proud-faced forest child had set Jeffray’s manhood in a blaze. Jeffray, who had been speaking to Gladden, came back and laid his hand on Wilson’s shoulder. “This is Mrs. Elizabeth Grimshaw, Dick,” he said, with the pride of a lover; “you have been paying your respects to her.”