“How long?”

“Mrs. Grantham expects me back in an hour at latest.  Father and Patty will be arriving before supper, and there are the children to be put to bed.”

“Let us go up the canal, then.  I have a surprise for you.”

They took hands—­both her hands in his, their arms held crosswise to their bodies—­and struck out, stroke for stroke.  By the third stroke they were swinging forward in perfect rhythm, each onrush held long and level on the outside edge and curving only as it slackened.  The air began to sing by Hetty’s temples; her skates kept a humming tune with her lover’s.  The back of his hand rested warm against her bosom.

“You skate divinely.”

She scarcely heard.  The world slipped past and behind her with the racing trees:  she was a bird mated and flying into the sunset.  Ah, here was bliss!  Awhile ago she had been faint with love, as though a cord were being tightened around her heart:  it had been hard for her to speak, hard even to draw breath.  Now her lungs opened, the cord snapped and broke with a sob; and, as the sun’s rim dipped, she flew faster, urgent to overtake and hold it there, to stay its red glint between the reed-beds, its bloom of brown and purple on the withered grasses.  The wind of her skirt caught up the dead leaves freshly scattered on the ice and swept them along with her, whirling, like a train of birds.  But, race as she would, the sun sank and the shadow of the world crept higher behind her shoulder.  The last gleam died; and, lifting her eyes, Hetty saw over its grave, poised in a clear space of sky, the sickle moon.

She tried to disengage her hand, to point to it:  but as his eyes sought hers with a question, she let it lie and nodded upwards instead.  He saw and understood, and with their faces raised to it they held on their flight in silence:  for lovers may wish with the new moon, but the first to speak will have wished in vain.

A tapping, as of someone hammering upon metal, sounded from a clump of willows ahead and upon their right.  A woman’s voice joined in scolding.  This broke the spell; and with a laugh they disengaged hands, separated, and let their speed bear them on side by side till it slackened and they ran to a halt beside the trees.

A barge lay here, hopelessly frozen on its way up the canal.  On its deck a woman, with arms akimbo, stood over a man seated and tinkering at a kettle.  She nodded as they approached.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, sir—­you and the lady.”

Hetty looked at her lover.

“It’s all right,” he explained:  “only a surprise of mine, which seems to have missed fire.  I had planned a small picnic here and this good woman was to have had a dish of tea ready for you—­”

“How was I to know that man of mine had been fool enough to fill the kettle before tramping off to the ’Ring of Bells’?” the good woman broke in.  “Lord knows ‘tisn’ his way to be thoughtful, and when he tries it there’s always a breakage.  When I’d melted the ice, the thing began to leak like a sieve; and if this tinker fellow hadn’t come along—­by Providence, as you may call it—­though I’d ha’ been obliged to Providence for a quicker workman—­”