“Like we did the first time you came,” Margaret answered. His hand lay near hers and he pressed it, keeping it in his. “We might have tea there, on that iron table, as we did that day,” he said. “And hear the sea, watch the waves,” she murmured in response. “You like me better than you did that day.” “I know you better.” She found it difficult to talk. “Everything is better now,” he said with a sigh of satisfaction. It was twenty minutes’ drive from the station to the hotel. He was telling her of an old oak bureau he had seen, of the way the workmen were progressing, of a Spode dinner service George was going to give them. Once when they were between green hedges in a green solitude, he raised the hand he held to his lips and said: “Only three days more.” She was in a dream from which she had no wish to wake. “You don’t usually wear a veil, do you?” he asked. “There is something different about you today....” “It is my new trousseau,” she answered, not without inward agitation, but lightly withal. “The latest fashion. Don’t you like it?” Now they had left the sheltering hedges and were within sight of the white painted hostelry. “The hat and dress and everything are lovely. But your own loveliness is obscured by the veil. It makes you look ethereal; I cannot see you so clearly through it. Beloved, you are quite well, are you not?” There was a note of sudden anxiety in his voice. “It is the veil, isn’t it? You are not pale?” She shook her head. “No, it is the veil.” They pulled up at the door of the hotel. There was another fly there, but empty, the horse with a nose-bag, feeding, the coachman not on the box. “The carriage is to wait. You can take the bag up to my room,” he said to the porter. Then turned to help Margaret. “Send out tea for two as quickly as you can. The table is not occupied, is it?” “There is a lady walking about,” the man said. “I don’t know as she ’as ordered tea. She’s been here some time, seems to be waiting for some one.” “Oh! we don’t want any one but ourselves,” Margaret exclaimed, still with that breathless strange agitation. “I’ll see to that, milady.” He touched his cap. When they walked down the path to where, on the terrace overlooking the sea, the iron table and two chairs awaited them, Margaret said reminiscently: “I sat and waited for you here whilst you saw your room, washed your hands....” “And today I cannot leave you even to wash my hands.” The deep tenderness in his voice penetrated, shook her heart. He remembered what they had for tea last time, and ordered it again when the waiter came to them: Strawberry jam in a little glass dish, clotted cream, brown and white bread and butter. “The sea is calmer than it was on that day,” he said when the waiter went to execute the order. “The sky is not less blue,” Margaret answered, and it seemed as if they were talking in symbols.