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INNOCENT
Her Fancy and His Fact
By MARIE CORELLI
Author of "God's Good Man," "The Treasure of Heaven," Etc.
BOOK ONE: HER FANCY
INNOCENT
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER I
The old by-road went rambling down into a dell of deep green shadow. Itwas a reprobate of a road,--a vagrant of the land,--having long agowandered out of straight and even courses and taken to meanderingaimlessly into many ruts and furrows under arching trees, which in wetweather poured their weight of dripping rain upon it and made it littlemore than a mud pool. Between straggling bushes of elder and hazel,blackberry and thorn, it made its solitary shambling way, so sunkeninto itself with long disuse that neither to the right nor to the leftof it could anything be seen of the surrounding country. Hidden behindthe intervening foliage on either hand were rich pastures and ploughedfields, but with these the old road had nothing in common. There weremany things better suited to its nature, such as the melodious notes ofthe birds which made their homes year after year amid its borderingthickets, or the gathering together in springtime of thousands ofprimroses, whose pale, small, elfin faces peeped out from every mossycorner,--or the scent of secret violets in the grass, filling the airwith the delicate sweetness of a breathing made warm by the April sun.Or when the thrill of summer drew the wild roses running quickly fromthe earth skyward, twining their stems together in fantastic arches andtufts of deep pink and flush-white blossom, and the briony wreaths withtheir small bright green stars swung pendent from over-shadowing boughslike garlands for a sylvan festival. Or the thousands of tinyunassuming herbs which grew up with the growing speargrass, bringingwith them pungent odours from the soil as from some deep-laidstorehouse of precious spices. These choice delights were the oldby-road's peculiar possession, and through a wild maze of beauty andfragrance it strayed on with a careless awkwardness, getting more andmore involved in tangles of green,--till at last, recoiling abruptly asit were upon its own steps, it stopped short at the entrance to acleared space in front of a farmyard. With this the old by-road hadevidently no sort of business whatever, and ended altogether, as itwere, with a rough shock of surprise at finding itself in such openquarters. No arching trees or twining brambles were here,--it was awide, clean brick-paved place chiefly possessed by a goodly company ofpromising fowls, and a huge cart-horse. The horse was tied to hismanger in an open shed, and munched and munched with all the steadinessand goodwill of the sailor's wife who offended Macbeth's first witch.Beyond the farmyard was the farmhouse itself,--a long, low, timberedbuilding with a broad tiled roof supported by huge oaken rafters andcrowned with many gables,--a building proudly declaring itself as ofthe days of Elizabeth's yeomen, and bearing about it the honourablemarks of age and long stress of weather. No such farmhouses are builtnowadays, for life has become with us less than a temporary thing,--acoin to be spent rapidly as soon as gained, too valueless for anyinterest upon it to be sought or desired. In olden times it wasapparently not considered such cheap currency. Men built their homes tolast not only for their own lifetime, but for the lifetime of theirchildren and their children's children; and the idea that theirchildren's children might possibly fail to appreciate the strenuousnessand worth of their labours never entered their simple brains.
The farmyard was terminated at its other end by a broad stone archway,which showed as in a semi-circular frame the glint of scarlet geraniumsin the distance, and in the shadow cast by this embrasure was the smallunobtrusive figure of a girl. She stood idly watching the hens peckingat their food and driving away their offspring from every chance ofsharing bit or sup with them,--and as she noted the greedy triumph ofthe strong over the weak, the great over the small, her brows drewtogether in a slight frown of something like scorn. Yet hers was not aface that naturally expressed any of the unkind or harsh emotions. Itwas soft and delicately featured, and its rose-white tints wereillumined by grave, deeply-set grey eyes that were full of wistful andquestioning pathos. In stature she was below the middle height andslight of build, so that she seemed a mere child at first sight, withnothing particularly attractive about her except, perhaps, her hands.These were daintily shaped and characteristic of inbred refinement, andas they hung listlessly at her sides looked scarcely less white thanthe white cotton frock she wore. She turned presently with a movementof impatience away from the sight of the fussy and quarrelsome fowls,and looking up at the quaint gables of the farmhouse uttered a low,caressing call. A white dove flew down to her instantly, followed byanother and yet another. She smiled and extended her arms, and a wholeflock of the birds came fluttering about her in a whirl of wings,perching on her shoulders and alighting at her feet. One that seemed toenjoy a position of special favouritism, flew straight against herbreast,--she caught it and held it there. It remained with her quitecontentedly, while she stroked its velvety neck.
"Poor Cupid!" she murmured. "You love me, don't you? Oh yes, ever somuch! Only you can't tell me so! I'm glad! You wouldn't be half sosweet if you could!"
She kissed the bird's soft head, and still stroking it scattered allthe others around her by a slight gesture, and went, followed by asnowy cloud of them, through the archway into the garden beyond. Herethere were flower-beds formally cut and arranged in the old-fashionedDutch manner, full of sweet-smelling old-fashioned things, such asstocks and lupins, verbena and mignonette,--there were box-borders andclumps of saxifrage, fuchsias, and geraniums,--and roses that grew inevery possible way that roses have ever grown, or can ever grow. Thefarmhouse fronted fully on this garden, and a magnificent "Glory" rosecovered it from its deep black oaken porch to its highest gable,wreathing it with hundreds of pale golden balls of perfume. A real"old" rose it was, without any doubt of its own intrinsic worth andsweetness,--a rose before which the most highly trained hybrids mighthang their heads for shame or wither away with envy, for the air aroundit was wholly perfumed with its honey-scented nectar, distilled frompeaceful years upon years of sunbeams and stainless dew. The girl,still carrying her pet dove, walked slowly along the narrow gravelledpaths that encircled the flower-beds and box-borders, till, reaching alow green door at the further end of the garden, she opened it andpassed through into a newly mown field, where several lads and men wereabout busily employed in raking together the last swaths of a full cropof hay and adding them to the last waggon which stood in the centre ofthe ground, horseless, and piled to an almost toppling height. Oneyoung fellow, with a crimson silk tie knotted about his openshirt-collar, stood on top of the lofty fragrant load, fork in hand,tossing the additional heaps together as they were thrown up to him.The afternoon sun blazed burningly down on his uncovered head and barebrown arms, and as he shook and turned the hay with untiring energy,his movements were full of the easy grace and picturesqueness which areoften the unconscious endowment of those whose labour keeps them dailyin the fresh air. Occasional bursts of laughter and scraps of roughsong came from the others at work, and there was only one absolutelyquiet figure among them, that of an old man sitting on an upturnedbarrel which had been but recently emptied of its home-brewed beer,meditatively smoking a long clay pipe. He wore a smock frock and strawhat, and under the brim of the straw hat, which was well pulled downover his forehead, his filmy eyes gleamed with an alert watchfulness.He seemed to be counting every morsel of hay that was being added tothe load and pricing it in his mind, but there was no actual expressionof either pleasure or interest on his features. As the girl entered thefield, and her gown made a gleam of white on the grass, he turned hishead and looked at her, puffing hard at his pipe and watching herapproach only a little
less narrowly than he watched the piling up ofthe hay. When she drew sufficiently near him he spoke.
"Coming to ride home on last load?"
She hesitated.
"I don't know. I'm not sure," she answered.
"It'll please Robin if you do," he said.
A little smile trembled on her lips. She bent her head over the doveshe held against her bosom.
"Why should I please Robin?" she asked.
His dull eyes sparkled with a gleam of anger.
"Please Robin, please ME," he said, sharply--"Please yourself, pleasenobody."
"I do my best to please YOU, Dad!" she said, gently, yet with emphasis.
He was silent, sucking at his pipe-stem. Just then a whistle struck theair like the near note of a thrush. It came from the man on top of thehaywaggon. He had paused in his labour, and his face was turned towardsthe old man and the girl. It was a handsome face, lighted by a smilewhich seemed to have caught a reflex of the sun.
"All ready, Uncle!" he shouted--"Ready and waiting!"
The old man drew his pipe from his mouth.
"There you are!" he said, addressing the girl in a softer tone,--"He'swanting you."
She moved away at once. As she went, the men who were raking in thelast sweepings of the hay stood aside for her to pass. One of them puta ladder against the wheel of the waggon.
"Going up, miss?" he asked, with a cheerful grin.
She smiled a response, but said nothing.
The young fellow on top of the load looked down. His blue eyes sparkledmerrily as he saw her.
"Are you coming?" he called.
She glanced up.
"If you like," she answered.
"If I like!" he echoed, half-mockingly, half-tenderly; "You know Ilike! Why, you've got that wretched bird with you!"
"He's not a wretched bird," she said,--"He's a darling!"
"Well, you can't climb up here hugging him like that! Let him go,--andthen I'll help you."
For all answer she ascended the ladder lightly without assistance,still holding the dove, and in another minute was seated beside him.
"There!" she said, as she settled herself comfortably down in the soft,sweet-smelling hay. "Now you've got your wish, and I hope Dad is happy."
"Did he tell you to come, or did you come of your own accord?" askedthe young man, with a touch of curiosity.
"He told me, of course," she answered; "I should never have come of myown accord."
He bit his lip vexedly. Turning away from her he called to thehaymakers:
"That'll do, boys! Fetch Roger, and haul in!"
The sun was nearing the western horizon and a deep apricot glow warmedthe mown field and the undulating foliage in the far distance. The menbegan to scatter here and there, putting aside their long wooden rakes,and two of them went off to bring Roger, the cart-horse, from his shed.
"Uncle Hugo!"
The old man, who still sat impassively on the beer-barrel, looked up.
"Ay! What is it?"
"Are you coming along with us?"
Uncle Hugo shook his head despondently.
"Why not? It's the last load this year!"
"Ay!" He lifted his straw hat and waved it in a kind of farewell salutetowards the waggon, repeating mechanically: "The last load! The verylast!"
Then there came a cessation of movement everywhere for the moment. Itwas a kind of breathing pause in Nature's everlasting chorus,--a suddenrest, as it seemed, in the very spaces of the air. The young man threwhimself down on the hay-load so that he faced the girl, who sat quiet,caressing the dove she held. He was undeniably good-looking, with anopen nobility of feature which is uncommon enough among well-born andcarefully-nurtured specimens of the human race, and is perhaps stillmore rarely to be found among those whose lot in life is one ofcontinuous hard manual labour. Just now he looked singularlyattractive, the more so, perhaps, because he was unconscious of it. Hestretched out one hand towards the girl and touched the hem of herwhite frock.
"Are you feeling kind?"
Her eyes lightened with a gleam of merriment.
"I am always kind."
"Not to me! Not as kind as you are to that bird."
"Oh, poor Cupid! You're jealous of him!"
He moved a little nearer to her.
"Perhaps I am!" And he spoke in a lower tone. "Perhaps I am, Innocent!I grudge him the privilege of lying there on your dear little whitebreast! I am envious when you kiss him! I want you to kiss ME!"
His voice was tremulous,--he turned up his face audaciously.
She looked at him with a smile.
"I will if you like!" she said. "I should think no more of kissing youthan of kissing Cupid!"
He drew back with a gesture of annoyance.
"I wouldn't be kissed at all that way," he said, hotly.
"Why not?"
"Because it's not the right way. A bird is not a man!"
She laughed merrily.
"Nor a man a bird, though he may have a bird's name!" she said. "Oh,Robin, how clever you are!"
He leaned closer.
"Let Cupid go!" he pleaded,--"I want to ride home on the last load withyou alone."
Another little peal of laughter escaped her.
"I declare you think Cupid an actual person!" she said. "If he'll go,he shall. But I think he'll stay."
She loosened her hold of the dove, which, released, gravely hopped upto her shoulder and sat there pruning its wing. She glanced round at it.
"I told you so!" she said,--"He's a fixture."
"I don't mind him so much up there," said Robin, and he ventured totake one of her hands in his own,--"but he always has so much of you;he nestles under your chin and is caressed by your sweet lips,--he hasall, and I have,--nothing!"
"You have one hand," said Innocent, with demure gravity.
"But no heart with it!" he said, wistfully. "Innocent, can you neverlove me?"
She was silent, looking at him critically,--then she gave a little sigh.
"I'm afraid not! But I have often thought about it."
"You have?"--and his eyes grew very tender.
"Oh yes, often! You see, it isn't your fault at all. Youare--well!"--here she surveyed him with a whimsical air ofadmiration,--"you are quite a beautiful man! You have a splendid figureand a good face, and kind eyes and well-shaped feet and hands,--and Ilike the look of you just now with that open collar and that gleam ofsunlight in your curly hair--and your throat is almost white, exceptfor a touch of sunburn, which is RATHER becoming!--especially withthat crimson silk tie! I suppose you put that tie on for effect, didn'tyou?"
He flushed, and laughed lightly.
"Naturally! To please YOU!"
"Really? How thoughtful of you! Well, you are charming,--and Ishouldn't mind kissing you at all. But it wouldn't be for love."
"Wouldn't it? What would it be for, then?"
Her face lightened up with the illumination of an inward mirth andmischief.
"Only because you look pretty!" she answered.
He threw aside her hand with an angry gesture of impatience.
"You want to make a fool of me!" he said, petulantly.
"I'm sure I don't! You are just lovely, and I tell you so. That is notmaking a fool of you!"
"Yes, it is! A man is never lovely. A woman may be."
"Well, I'm not," said Innocent, placidly. "That's why I admire theloveliness of others."
"You are lovely to me," he declared, passionately.
She smiled. There was a touch of compassion in the smile.
"Poor Robin!" she said.
At that moment the hidden goddess in her soul arose and asserted herclaim to beauty. A rare indefinable charm of exquisite tenderness andfascination seemed to environ her small and delicate personality withan atmosphere of resistless attraction. The man beside her felt it, andhis heart beat quickly with a thrilling hope of conquest.
"So you pity me!" he said,--"Pity is akin to love."
"But kinsfolk
seldom agree," she replied. "I only pity you because youare foolish. No one but a very foolish fellow would think ME lovely."
He raised himself a little and peered over the edge of the hay-load tosee if there was any sign of the men returning with Roger, but therewas no one in the field now except the venerable personage he calledUncle Hugo, who was still smoking away his thoughts, as it were, in adream of tobacco. And he once more caught the hand he had just let goand covered it with kisses.
"There!" he said, lifting his head and showing an eager face lit byamorous eyes. "Now you know how lovely you are to me! I should like tokiss your mouth like that,--for you have the sweetest mouth in theworld! And you have the prettiest hair,--not raw gold which Ihate,--but soft brown, with delicious little sunbeams lost in it,--andsuch a lot of it! I've seen it all down, remember! And your eyes woulddraw the heart out of any man and send him anywhere,--yes,Innocent!--anywhere,--to Heaven or to Hell!"
She coloured a little.
"That's beautiful talk!" she said,--"It's like poetry, but it isn'ttrue!"
"It is true!" he said, with fond insistence. "And I'll MAKE you loveme!"
"Ah, no!" A look of the coldest scorn suddenly passed over herfeatures--"that's not possible. You could never MAKE me do anything!And--it's rude of you to speak in such a way. Please let go my hand!"
He dropped it instantly, and sprang erect.
"All right! I'll leave you to yourself,--and Cupid!" Here he laughedrather bitterly. "What made you give that bird such a name?"
"I found it in a book," she answered,--"It's a name that was given tothe god of Love when he was a little boy."
"I know that! Please don't teach me my A.B.C.," said Robin,half-sulkily.
She leaned back laughing, and singing softly:
"Love was once a little boy, Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho! Then 'twas sweet with him to toy, Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho!"
Her eyes sparkled in the sun,--a tress of her hair, ruffled by the hay,escaped and flew like a little web of sunbeams against her cheek. Helooked at her moodily.
"You might go on with the song," he said,--"'Love is now a littleman--'"
"'And a very naughty one!'" she hummed, with a mischievous upwardglance.
Despite his inward vexation, he smiled.
"Say what you like, Cupid is a ridiculous name for a dove," he said.
"It rhymes to stupid," she replied, demurely,--"And the rhyme expressesthe nature of the bird and--the god!"
"Pooh! You think that clever!"
"I don't! I never said a clever thing in my life. I shouldn't know how.Everything clever has been written over and over again by people inbooks."
"Hang books!" he exclaimed. "It's always books with you! I wish we hadnever found that old chest of musty volumes in the panelled room."
"Do you? Then you are sillier than I thought you were. The books taughtme all I know,--about love!"
"About love! You don't know what love means!" he declared, tramplingthe hay he stood upon with impatience. "You read and read, and you getthe queerest ideas into your head, and all the time the world goes onin ways that are quite different from what YOU are thinking about,--andlovers walk through the fields and lanes everywhere near us every year,and you never appear to see them or to envy them--"
"Envy them!" The girl opened her eyes wide. "Envy them! Oh, Cupid,hear! Envy them! Why should I envy them? Who could envy Mr. and Mrs.Pettigrew?"
"What nonsense you talk!" he exclaimed,--"Mr. and Mrs. Pettigrew aremarried folk, not lovers!"
"But they were lovers once," she said,--"and only three years ago. Iremember them, walking through the lanes and fields as you say, witharms round each other,--and Mrs. Pettigrew's hands were alwaysdreadfully red, and Mr. Pettigrew's fingers were always dirty,--andthey married very quickly,--and now they've got two dreadful babiesthat scream all day and all night, and Mrs. Pettigrew's hair is nevertidy and Pettigrew himself--well, you know what he does!--"
"Gets drunk every night," interrupted Robin, crossly,--"I know! And Isuppose you think I'm another Pettigrew?"
"Oh dear, no!" And she laughed with the heartiest merriment. "You nevercould, you never would be a Pettigrew! But it all comes to the samething--love ends in marriage, doesn't it?"
"It ought to," said Robin, sententiously.
"And marriage ends--in Pettigrews!"
"Innocent!"
"Don't say 'Innocent' in that reproachful way! It makes me feel quiteguilty! Now,--if you talk of names,--THERE'S a name to give a poorgirl,--Innocent! Nobody ever heard of such a name--"
"You're wrong. There were thirteen Popes named Innocent between theyears 402 and 1724," said Robin, promptly,--"and one of them, Innocentthe Eleventh, is a character in Browning's 'Ring and the Book.'"
"Dear me!" And her eyes flashed provocatively. "You astound me withyour wisdom, Robin! But all the same, I don't believe any girl ever hadsuch a name as Innocent, in spite of thirteen Popes. And perhaps theThirteen had other names?"
"They had other baptismal names," he explained, with a learned air."For instance, Pope Innocent the Third was Cardinal Lothario before hebecame Pope, and he wrote a book called 'De Contemptu Mundi sive deMiseria Humanae Conditionis!'"
She looked at him as he uttered the sonorous sounding Latin, with acomically respectful air of attention, and then laughed like achild,--laughed till the tears came into her eyes.
"Oh Robin, Robin!" she cried--"You are simply delicious! The mostenchanting boy! That crimson tie and that Latin! No wonder the villagegirls adore you! 'De,'--what is it? 'Contemptu Mundi,' and Misery HumanConditions! Poor Pope! He never sat on top of a hay-load in his lifeI'm sure! But you see his name was Lothario,--not Innocent."
"His baptismal name was Lothario," said Robin, severely.
She was suddenly silent.
"Well! I suppose _I_ was baptised?" she queried, after a pause.
"I suppose so."
"I wonder if I have any other name? I must ask Dad."
Robin looked at her curiously;--then his thoughts were diverted by thesight of a squat stout woman in a brown spotted print gown and whitesunbonnet, who just then trotted briskly into the hay-field, calling atthe top of her voice:
"Mister Jocelyn! Mister Jocelyn! You're wanted!"
"There's Priscilla calling Uncle in," he said, and making a hollow ofhis hands he shouted:
"Hullo, Priscilla! What is it?"
The sunbonnet gave an upward jerk in his direction and the wearershrilled out:
"Doctor's come! Wantin' yer Uncle!"
The old man, who had been so long quietly seated on the upturnedbarrel, now rose stiffly, and knocking out the ashes of his pipe turnedtowards the farmhouse. But before he went he raised his straw hat againand stood for a moment bareheaded in the roseate glory of the sinkingsun. Innocent sprang upright on the load of hay, and standing almost atthe very edge of it, shaded her eyes with one hand from the stronglight, and looked at him.
"Dad!" she called--"Dad, shall I come?"
He turned his head towards her.
"No, lass, no! Stay where you are, with Robin."
He walked slowly, and with evident feebleness, across the length of thefield which divided him from the farmhouse garden, and opening thegreen gate leading thereto, disappeared. The sun-bonneted individualcalled Priscilla walked or rather waddled towards the hay-waggon, andsetting her arms akimbo on her broad hips, looked up with a grin at theyoung people on top.
"Well! Ye're a fine couple up there! What are ye a-doin' of?"
"Never mind what we're doing," said Robin, impatiently. "I say,Priscilla, do you think Uncle Hugo is really ill?"
Priscilla's face, which was the colour of an ancient nutmeg, and almostas deeply marked with contrasting lines of brown and yellow, showed noemotion.
"He ain't hisself," she said, bluntly.
"No," said Innocent, seriously,--"I'm sure he isn't." Priscilla jerkedher sunbonnet a little further back, showing some tags of dusty greyhair.
"He ain't
been hisself for this past year," she went on--"Mr. Slowton,bein' only a kind of village physic-bottle, don't know much, an' yeruncle ain't bin satisfied. Now there's another doctor from Londonstaying up 'ere for 'is own poor 'elth, and yer Uncle said he'd like to'ave 'is opinion,--so Mr. Slowton, bein' obligin' though ignorant, 'asgot 'im in to see yer Uncle, and there they both is, in the bestparlour, with special wine an' seedies on the table."
"Oh, it'll be all right!" said Robin, cheerfully,--"Uncle Hugo isgetting old, of course, and he's a bit fanciful."
Priscilla sniffed the air.
"Mebbe--and mebbe not! What are you two waitin' for now?"
"For the men to come back with Roger. Then we'll haul home."
"You'll 'ave to wait a bit longer, I'm thinkin'," saidPriscilla--"They's all drinkin' beer in the yard now an' tappin'another barrel to drink at when the waggon comes in. There's no animalson earth as ever thirsty as men! Well, good luck t'ye! I must go, orthere'll be a smell of burnin' supper-cakes."
She settled her sunbonnet anew and trotted away,--looking rather like alarge spotted mushroom mysteriously set in motion and rolling, ratherthan walking, off the field.
When she was gone, Innocent sat down again upon the hay, this timewithout Cupid. He had flown off to join his mates on the farmhousegables.
"Dad is really not well," she said, thoughtfully; "I feel anxious abouthim. If he were to die,--" At the mere thought her eyes filled withtears. "He must die some day," answered Robin, gently,--"and he'sold,--nigh on eighty."
"Oh, I don't want to remember that," she murmured. "It's the cruellestpart of life--that people should grow old, and die, and pass away fromus. What should I do without Dad? I should be all alone, with no one inthe world to care what becomes of me."
"_I_ care!" he said, softly.
"Yes, you care--just now"--she answered, with a sigh; "and it's verykind of you. I wish I could care--in the way you want me to--but--"
"Will you try?" he pleaded.
"I do try--really I do try hard," she said, with quite a piteousearnestness,--"but I can't feel what isn't HERE,"--and she pressed bothhands on her breast--"I care more for Roger the horse, and Cupid thedove, than I do for you! It's quite awful of me--but there it is! Ilove--I simply adore"--and she threw out her arms with an embracinggesture--"all the trees and plants and birds!--and everything about thefarm and the farmhouse itself--it's just the sweetest home in theworld! There's not a brick or a stone in it that I would not want tokiss if I had to leave it--but I never felt that way for you! And yet Ilike you very, very much, Robin!--I wish I could see you married tosome nice girl, only I don't know one really nice enough."
"Nor do I!" he answered, with a laugh, "except yourself! But nevermind, dear!--we won't talk of it any more, just now at any rate. I'm apatient sort of chap. I can wait!"
"How long?" she queried, with a wondering glance.
"All my life!" he answered, simply.
A silence fell between them. Some inward touch of embarrassmenttroubled the girl, for the colour came and went flatteringly in hersoft cheeks and her eyes drooped under his fervent gaze. The glowinglight of the sky deepened, and the sun began to sink in a mist ofbright orange, which was reflected over all the visible landscape witha warm and vivid glory. That strange sense of beauty and mystery whichthrills the air with the approach of evening, made all the simplepastoral scene a dream of incommunicable loveliness,--and the twoyouthful figures, throned on their high dais of golden-green hay, mighthave passed for the rustic Adam and Eve of some newly created Eden.They were both very quiet,--with the tense quietness of hearts that aretoo full for speech. A joy in the present was shadowed with a dimunconscious fear of the future in both their thoughts,--though neitherof them would have expressed their feelings in this regard one to theother. A thrush warbled in a hedge close by, and the doves on thefarmhouse gables spread their white wings to the late sunlight, cooingamorously. And again the man spoke, with a gentle firmness:
"All my life I shall love you, Innocent! Whatever happens, rememberthat! All my life!"