"Are you so fond of flowers?" he asked. "Fond of flowers! Of course I am and so are you. Don't tell me you don't care for them or I shall never love you again." "I like them in the fields; but I can't truthfully say that they ever give me the joy that they evidently give you; and they mean little to me in the house." "I don't think I could live without them. The primroses in my garden and the blue hyacinths are witness to that," she added laughing. And Luke stood and watched her bury her face again in the flowers and wondered for the hundredth time however she had made up her mind to leave all such things. "They are from Gwen," added Rachel, "and here is her letter." It happened to be an answer to his unspoken question, if Rachel had allowed him to see it, but at a glance she saw it was one of Gwen's nonsensical letters. "I know what you will do when you open the box." she wrote, "you will bury your face in the flowers and try and imagine yourself in the woods, and when you raise your eyes they will be full of tears. But apparently Luke makes up for it all, so I am not going to worry about your tears. He makes up for mother and me, and Sybil! Not to mention the bluebells in the wood and the scent of the violets and primroses and everything lovely here. It's all quite amazing to me, but you would tell me that that is just because I do not know what love is. I hope I shall never know as I don't want to lose all the things which I now adore. Don't give my love to Luke, for I don't like him. He's just an ordinary man, and I thought you would have chosen one out of the common. I owe him a grudge for taking you away. I do hope he knows what a treasure he has and is taking care of you, but I don't for a moment suppose that he is. All men are selfish and certainly Luke is." Rachel laughed, and as Luke tried to catch hold of the letter to read it, knowing that it would amuse him, Rachel tore it quickly into pieces and threw it into the fire, saying triumphantly, "You were just too late. Besides the first part would have made you so conceited that there would be no holding you, and the last part so depressed that it would have unfitted you for your work." [Illustration] CHAPTER XIV. DISAPPOINTMENT. That Spring was a crisis in Rachel's life. She felt to have travelled far along the road of experience since that moonlight night last summer, when she had thought that she had just married a man who would fulfil all her expectations and hopes. She had, as it were, been exploring since her marriage, a new piece of country, and though she had often rejoiced to find herself on the mountain top, she had at times to walk in the shade of the valley. It was not quite what she had anticipated. There were rough places, and disappointing views, and she had had to confess that the landscape was not all as perfect as she had thought she would find it.