It was not so much the splendour of manly prime and strength that struck him with the contrast to himself, not so much even the sight of love, as of hope, and spring, and bloom, that were more than he could bear.  How sufficient to themselves they seemed!  How charming Emily was!  A woman destined to inspire a life-long love seldom shows much consciousness of it.  “I never saw a fellow so deeply in love with his wife,” thought Valentine.  “Surely she knows it.  What are you saying to her, John?” They had stopped under the great fruit-trees near the garden-door.  John bent down one of the blossom-laden boughs, and she, fair, and almost pale, stood in the delicate white shadow looking at it.

Beautiful manhood and womanhood! beautiful childhood, and health, and peace!  Valentine laid himself down again and shut his eyes.

Emily had betrayed a little anxiety about him that morning.  He was very thin, she said; he must take care of himself.

“Oh, yes,” he had answered, “I shall do that.  I have been very unwell, but I am better now.”  And then he had noticed that John looked at him uneasily, and seemed disturbed when he coughed.  He thought that as they stood under the fruit-trees John had caught sight of him.

“I knew he would come up as soon as he found opportunity, and here he is,” thought Valentine, not moving from his place, but simply lifting up his head as John entered.  “What have you done with Emily?” he asked.

“Emily is gone up to her dressing-room.  She means to hear the children read.”

“Ah,” exclaimed Valentine, with a sudden laugh of good-humoured raillery, “of all womankind, John, you have evidently secured the pearl, the ‘one entire and perfect chrysolite.’  You know you think so.”

“Yes,” answered John gravely, “but don’t put me off, my dear fellow.”

“What do you want?  What do you mean?” said Valentine, for John sitting down near him, held out his hand.  “Oh, nonsense; I’m all right.”  But he put his own into it, and let John with his other hand push up the sleeve of his coat.

“Too thin by half, isn’t it?” he said, affecting indifference, as John gravely relinquished it; “but I am so mummied up in flannels that it doesn’t show much.”

“My dear fellow,” John Mortimer repeated.

“Yes, I have been long unwell, but now I have leave to start in one week, John.  I’m to take a sea voyage.  You told me you could only stay here a few days, and there is a great deal that ought to be done while you are here.  Don’t look so dismayed, the doctors give me every hope that I shall be all right again.”

“I devoutly hope so——­”

“There’s nothing to drive the blood from your manly visage,” Valentine said lightly, then went on, “There is one thing that I ought not to have neglected so long, and if I were in the best health possible I still ought to do it, before I take a long sea voyage.”  He spoke now almost with irritation, as if he longed to leave the subject of his health and was urgent to talk of business matters.  John Mortimer, with as much indifference as he could assume, tried to meet his wishes.