They did not meet very often. Once a week at most. He had vaguely
promised to tell her, some day, of his great work for the regeneration
of France, which he was carrying out in loneliness and exile here in
England, a work far greater and more comprehensive than that which had
secured for England religious and political liberty; this work it was
which made him a wanderer on the face of the earth and caused his
frequent and lengthy absences from the cottage in which he lodged.

She was quite content for the moment with these vague promises: in her
heart she was evolving enchanting plans for the future, when she would
be his helpmate in this great and mysterious work.

In the meanwhile she was satisfied to live in the present, to console
and comfort the noble exile, to lavish on him the treasures of her young
and innocent love, to endow him in her imagination with all those mental
and physical attributes which her romantic nature admired most.

The spring had come, clothing the weird branches of the elms with a
tender garb of green, the anemones in the woods yielded to the bluebells
and these to carpets of primroses and violets. The forests of Thanet
echoed with songs of linnets and white-throats. She was happy and she
was in love.

With the lengthened days came some petty sorrows. He was obviously
worried, sometimes even impatient. Their meetings became fewer and
shorter, for the evening hours were brief. She found it difficult to
wander out so late across the park, unperceived, and he would never
meet her by day-light.