"You reside at Whitchurch?" said I, as we proceeded slowly together, occasionally treading the fallen apples under foot among the long grass. "Yes." "It is, then, your home?" "I have no other--at present," said she, in a choking voice, and scarcely making an effort to restrain her tears, while I detected on a finger of the ungloved hand, the beauty of which I so much admired, a plain gold hoop--the marriage ring. So she was a wife; and the unseemly quarrel I had seen must have been a matrimonial one. Thus I became more assured in my manner. "I am almost a stranger here," said I, "as I belong to the garrison at Winchester." "You are an officer?" "Yes, madam, of the Royal Welsh Fusileers." She simply bowed, but did not respond to my information by saying _who_ she was. "Though a soldier, sir," said she, after a pause, "I dare say you will be aware that the hardest battles of this world are _not_ fought in the field." "Where then?" "Where we might least look for struggles of the soul: in many a well-ordered drawing-room; in many a poor garret; in many a lovely bower and sunny garden, or in a green and shady lane like this; fought in secrecy and the silence of the heart, and in tears that are hot and salt as blood!" She _is_ very pretty, thought I; but I hope she won't become melodramatic, hysterical, or anything of that sort! "Darkness will be set in ere you can reach Whitchurch, at our present rate of progression," said I; "and your--your--" (I was about to say husband) "relations or friends will be anxious about you." "Alas, no, sir! I have no one to miss or to regret me," she replied, mournfully; "but I must not intrude selfishly my sorrows on a stranger." "There is no appearance of the--the person who annoyed you returning," said I, looking backward up the long narrow lane we were descending. "Little chance is there of that," said she, bitterly; "_he_ will return no more." "You are certain of that?" "Too fatally certain!" "You have quarrelled, then?" "No; it is worse than a quarrel," said she, with her pale lips quivering. "He is an enemy?" "My enemy?--my tempter--my evil spirit--he is my husband!" "Pardon me; I did not mean to be curious, when I have no right to be so; but here is the highway; I too am going towards Whitchurch--my way to the barracks lies in that direction; and I shall have much pleasure in escorting you to your home, if you will permit me," said I, seized by an impulse of gallantry, humanity, or both, which I ere long had cause to repent. "Sir, I thank you, and shall detain you no longer," she replied, hurriedly; "I am something of a wanderer now, and my rooms are at the ivy-clad inn by the roadside." This was the place where I had seen Guilfoyle's roan mare, an evening or so past.