I Forbid the Banns! — page 145: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ON AN OAK SETTEE. 135 they were alive and had become aware of my resolution to place in the same oak chair that appeared in my mother’s picture, a woman who would be-——” ‘They could not understand,” he said out aloud, as he rose from his chair with an impatient movement. ‘“ They could not understand. Ido not suppose that many people will understand. What is it to us whether they do or not? We can live for each other, not for English society.” He opened one of the windows and stepped out upon the terrace. There had been no time for any of the garden seats to be put back to their places—he had only tele- graphed from London Docks at midday to have dinner ready for him—so he seated himself upon one of the stone steps leading down to the second terrace. There he lit his cigar. The blackbirds were singing in their rich altos and bari- tones to one another away in the clipped laurels of the shrubberies. A cuckoo—the first he had heard for over two years—was heard in the distance, and over the park of elms the rooks were cawing, but very fitfully, for the blue of the twilight was darkening every moment. In the dis- tance of dim woodlands there was a hint of the rising moon, now at its full. Behind him the lamp that the butler was carrying to the dining room glimmered from pane to pane. The flitter of a bat, the flutter of a moth, the flicker of a swallow—he was aware of each inturn. All were a joy to him because he knew they would be a joy to her, when she would come here to be his He got to his feet once more and walked quickly down the last steps and on to the brink of the broad fish pond on which the water lilies were floating. Here and there the splash of one of the fat carp which he knew so well sounded. Here at last was rest. He seated himself on the concrete border of the pond and allowed his thoughts to carry him away. Over the CONMNIELIOO KES (E(0)