At the end of the week Blossom returned to the mill, and on the afternoon of her arrival, Gay met her in the willow copse by the brook.  To the casual observer there would have appeared no perceptible change in his manner, but a closer student of the hearts of lovers might have drawn an inference from the fact that he allowed her to wait five minutes for him at the place of meeting.  True, as he explained passionately, his mother had asked for him just as he was leaving the house, and it was clearly impossible that he should refuse his mother!  That he was still ardent for Blossom’s embraces was evident to her glance, but the affair was settled, the mystery solved, and there was no longer need that he should torment himself.  That the love of his kind is usually a torment or nothing had not, at this stage, occurred to either of the lovers.  He was feeling strongly that, having conducted himself in so honourable a manner there was nothing more to be expected of him; while she assured her heart that when his love had proved capable of so gallant a sacrifice, it had established the fact of its immortality.  The truth was that the fire still burned, though the obstacles, which had supplied fuel to the flames, were consumed, and a pleasant warmth rather than a destroying blaze was the result.  Had Gay sounded the depths of his nature, which he seldom did, he would have discovered that for him passion was a kind of restlessness translated into emotion.  When the restlessness was appeased, the desire in which it had revealed itself slowly evaporated.

“How is your mother?” was Blossom’s first eager question, “oh, I do hope she is better!”

“Better, yes, but we’re still awfully anxious, the least shock may kill her—­Aunt Kesiah and I are walking on pins and needles.  How are you, Beauty?  Did you enjoy your visit?”

He kissed her lips, and she clung to him with the first expression of weakness she had ever shown.

“How could I when it ended like that?”

“Well, you’re married anyway—­that ought to satisfy you.  What does it feel like?”

“I can’t believe it—­and I haven’t even any ring.”

“Oh, the ring!  If you’d had it, you’d have dropped it about somewhere and let out the secret.”

“I wish it had been in church and before a clergyman.”

“Are you trying to make me jealous again of the Reverend Orlando?  I’m an old married man now, and it is hopeless.”

“Do you really feel married, Jonathan?”

“The deuce I don’t!  If I did I’d be galloping down the turnpike.”

“I wonder why you did it?” she questioned a little wistfully, “you take it so lightly.”

“I could only take it lightly after I’d done it—­that’s why, darling.”

“If I could believe in it I shouldn’t mind the secrecy,” she said, “but I feel so wicked and underhand that I hardly dare hold up my head before the folks at home.  Jonathan, when do you think we may come out and confess?”