A wistfulness settled upon her out of which grew a slight hope.  “I am afraid of myself, Howat,” she told him; “all that I have been, my life—­against me.  But, perhaps, here, with you, it might be different.  Perhaps I would be constant.  Perhaps all the while I have needed this.  Howat, do you think so?  Do you think I could forget so much, drop the past from me, be all new and happy?”

He reassured her, only half intent upon the burden of her words.  He utterly disregarded anything provisional in their position; happiness or unhappiness were unconsidered in the overwhelming determination that she should never leave him.  No remote question of that entered his brain.  The difficulties were many, but he dismissed them with an impatient gesture of his unoccupied hand.  Gilbert Penny would be heavily censorious; he had, Howat recognized, the moral prejudices of a solid, unimaginative blood.  But, lately, his father had sunk to a place comparatively insignificant in his thoughts.  This was partly due to the complete manner in which Isabel Penny had silenced the elder at breakfast.  His mother, Howat gladly felt, would give him the sympathy of a wise, broad understanding.  David and Caroline would interpose no serious objection.  Felix Winscombe remained; a virile figure in spite of his years; a man of assured position and a bitter will.

He determined to speak on the day that Felix Winscombe returned from Annapolis; there would be no concealment of what had occurred, and no hypocrisy.  A decent regret at Winscombe’s supreme loss.  The other would not relinquish Ludowika without a struggle.  Who would?  It was conceivable that he would summon the assistance of the law, conceivable but not probable; the situation had its centre in a purely personal pride.  Nothing essential could be won legally.  A physical encounter was far more likely.  Howat thought of that coldly.  He had no chivalrous instinct to offer himself as a sop to conventional honour.  In any struggle, exchange of shots, he intended to be victorious....  He would have the naming of the conditions.

“It’s beautiful here,” Ludowika broke into his speculations; “the great forests and Myrtle Forge.  I can almost picture myself directing servants like your mother, getting supplies out of the store, and watching the charcoal and iron brought down to the Forge.  The sound of the hammer has become a part of my dreams.  And you, Howat—­I have never before had a feeling like this for a man.  There’s a little fear in it even.  It must be stronger than the other, than Europe; I want it to be.”  They could see below them the lighted windows at Myrtle Forge.  The horses turned unguided into the curving way across the lawn.  A figure stood obsequiously at the door; it was, Howat saw with deep automatic revulsion, the Italian servant.  He wondered again impatiently at the persistently unpleasant impression the other made on him.  Gilbert Penny was waiting in the hall, and Howat told him fully the result of his investigation.