"Of
it and you," he said; and having started, he came back to kiss her
again; he never forgot to have an impulse to do that. But all the way
to the Spittal it was of his book he thought, it was his book he was
kissing. His heart sang within him, and the songs were sonnets to his
beloved. To be worthy of his beautiful manuscript--he prayed for that
as lovers do; that his love should be his, his alone, was as wondrous
to him as to any of them.
But we are not noticing what proved to be the chief thing. Though
there was some sun, the air was shrewd, and he was wearing the old
doctor's coat. Should you have taken it with you, Tommy? It loved
Grizel, for it was a bit of him; and what, think you, would the old
doctor have cared for your manuscript had he known that you were gone
out to meet that woman? It was cruel, no, not cruel, but thoughtless,
to wear the old doctor's coat.
He found no one at the Spittal. The men were out shooting, and the
ladies had followed to lunch with them on the moors. He came upon
them, a gay party, in the hollow of a hill where was a spring suddenly
converted into a wine-cellar; and soon the men, if not the ladies,
were surprised to find that Tommy could be the gayest of them all.
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