This was all strange language to Thomasine. Passion she comprehended, but the poetry and romance of love, even in the wild and distorted form in which it was being presented, were beyond her. She could not understand the real meaning of the awakening of that tenderness in her, which was the womanhood trying to respond, and to make her, like Boodles, a creature of love, but failing because it could not get through the mass of flesh and ignorance, just as the seed too deeply planted can only struggle, but must fail, to grow into the light. She felt it would be pleasant to go away with Pendoggat if he was going to love her like that. She would be something of a lady; have a servant under her, perhaps. Thomasine was actually thinking. She would have a parlour to keep locked up; be the equal of the Chegwiddens; far above the village cobbler her father, and nearly as good as the idol-maker of Birmingham. That Pendoggat loved her was certain. He would not have lost his senses and behaved as he had done if he did not love her. Thomasine, like most young women, believed as much as she wanted to, believed that men are as good as their word, and that love and brute passion are synonymous terms. Once upon a time she had been taught how to read, write, and reckon; and she had forgotten most of that. She had not been taught that love is like the flower of the Agave: rare, and not always once in a lifetime; that passion is a wayside weed everywhere. Perhaps if she had been taught that she would not have forgotten. "We'll go away soon, my jewel," Pendoggat whispered. "Annie is not my wife--you know that. I can leave her any day. My time at the Barton is up in March, but we'll go before then." "Don't this old place smell mucky?" was all Thomasine had to say. They climbed up the ladder, and sat on the musty fern, which had made a bed for Brightly and his bitch, and Pendoggat continued his pleasant ways. He was in a curious state of happiness, still believing he was with the woman that he loved. The walls of the linhay continued to be the walls of Ebenezer and a shelter against the wind. They embraced and sang a hymn, but softly, lest any chance passer-by should overhear and discover them. Pendoggat knelt upon the fern and prayed aloud for their future happiness, speaking from his heart and meaning what he said. Thomasine was as happy as the fatted calf which knows nothing of its fate. It was on the whole the most successful of her evenings out. She was going to be a respectable married woman after all. Pendoggat had sworn it in his prayer. He could do as he liked with her after that, now that she was his in the sight of Heaven. The dirty linhay was a chapel, and a place of love where they were married in word and deed.