“I don’t believe it!  You’re unique.  The one and only Jenny Redington!”

“Red—!” Jenny’s colour flamed.  “Sounds nice,” she said; and was then silent.

“When we’re married,” went on Keith, watching her; “where shall we go for our honeymoon?  I say!... how would you like it if I borrowed the yacht from Templecombe and ran you off somewhere in it?  I expect he’d let me have the old Minerva. Not a bad idea, eh what!”

“When we’re married,” Jenny said breathlessly, very pale.

“What d’you mean?” Keith’s eyes were so close to her own that she was forced to lower her lids.  “When I come back from this trip.  Templecombe says three months.  It may be less.”

“It may be more.”  Jenny had hardly the will to murmur her warning—­her distrust.

“Very unlikely; unless the weather’s bad.  I’m reckoning on a mild winter.  If it’s cold and stormy then of course yachting’s out of the question.  But we’ll be back before the winter, any way.  And then—­darling Jenny—­we’ll be married as soon as I can get the licence.  There’s something for you to look forward to, my sweet.  Will you like to look forward to it?”

Jenny could feel his breath upon her face; but she could not move or speak.  Her breast was rising to quickened breathing; her eyes were burning; her mouth was dry.  When she moistened her lips she seemed to hear a cracking in her mouth.  It was as though fever were upon her, so moved was she by the expression in Keith’s eyes.  She was neither happy nor unhappy; but she was watching his face as if fascinated.  She could feel his arm so gently about her shoulder, and his breast against hers; and she loved him with all her heart.  She had at this time no thought of home; only the thought that they loved each other and that Keith would be away for three months; facing dangers indeed, but all the time loving her.  She thought of the future, of that time when they both would be free, when they should no longer be checked and bounded by the fear of not having enough food.  That was the thing, Jenny felt, that kept poor people in dread of the consequences of their own acts.  And Jenny felt that if they might live apart from the busy world, enduring together whatever ills might come to them from their unsophisticated mode of life, they would be able to be happy.  She thought that Keith would have no temptations that she did not share; no other men drawing him by imitativeness this way and that, out of the true order of his own character; no employer exacting in return for the weekly wage a servitude that was far from the blessed ideal of service.  Jenny thought these things very simply—­impulsively—­and not in a form to be intelligible if set down as they occurred to her; but the notions swam in her head along with her love for Keith and her joy in the love which he returned.  She saw his dear face so close to her own, and heard her own heart thumping vehemently, quicker and quicker, so that it sounded thunderously