“She is the woman I love,” said John.  “The woman I mean to make my wife.”

He remained seated, silently waiting for Peter to imbibe and assimilate his words.

After a quick gasp of incredulous indignation, Peter, too, sat silent at his side.

John gave him time to recover before he spoke again.

“I hope,” he said, very gently, “that when you have thought it over, you won’t mind it so much.  As it’s going to be—­it would be pleasanter if you and I could be friends.  I think, later on, you may even perceive advantages in the arrangement—­under the circumstances; when you have recovered from your natural regret in realizing that she must leave Barracombe—­”

“It isn’t that,” said Peter, hoarsely.  He felt he must speak; and he also desired, it must be confessed, to speak offensively, and relieve himself somewhat of the accumulated rage and resentment that was burning in his breast.  “It’s—­it’s simply”—­he said, flushing darkly, and turning his face away from John’s calm and friendly gaze—­“that to me—­to me, the idea is—­ridiculous.”

“Ah!” said John.  He rose from the stone bench.  A spark of anger came to him, too, as he looked at Peter, but he controlled his voice and his temper.  “The time will come,” he said, “when your imagination will be able to grasp the possibility of love between a man in the forties and a woman in the thirties.  At least, for your sake, I hope it will.”

“Why for my sake?” said Peter.

“Because I should be sorry,” said John, “if you died young.”

CHAPTER XIX

Nearly a thousand feet above the fertile valley of the Youle, stretched a waste of moorland.  Here all the trees were gnarled and dwarfed above the patches of rust-coloured bracken; save only the delicate silver birch, which swayed and yielded to the wind.

Great boulders were scattered among the thorn bushes, and over their rough and glistening breasts were flung velvet coverings of green moss and grey lichen.

On this October day, the heather yet sturdily bore a few last rosy blossoms, and the ripe blackberries shone like black diamonds on the straggling brambles.  Here and there a belated furze-bush erected its golden crown.

Over the dim purple of the distant hills, a brighter purple line proclaimed the sea.  Closer at hand, on a ridge exposed to every wind of heaven, sighed a little wood of stunted larch and dull blue pine, against a clear and brilliant sky.

Sarah was enthroned on a mossy stone, beneath the yellowing foliage of a sheltering beech.

Her glorious ruddy hair was uncovered, and a Tyrolese hat was hung on a neighbouring bramble, beside a little tweed coat.  She wore a loose white canvas shirt, and short tweed skirt; a brown leather belt, and brown leather boots.

Being less indifferent to creature-comforts than to the preservation of her complexion, Miss Sarah was paying great attention to the contents of a market-basket by her side.  She had chosen a site for the picnic near a bubbling brook, and had filled her glass with clear sparkling water therefrom, before seating herself to enjoy her cold chicken and bread and butter, and a slice of game-pie.