In due time George and Sophie asked each other that question, and
put it aside. They argued that the climate--a pearly blend,
unlike the hot and cold ferocities of their native land--suited
them, as the thick stillness of the nights certainly suited
George. He was saved even the sight of a metalled road, which, as
presumably leading to business, wakes desire in a man; and the
telegraph office at the village of Friars Pardon, where they sold
picture post-cards and pegtops, was two walking miles across the
fields and woods.

For all that touched his past among his fellows, or their
remembrance of him, he might have been in another planet; and
Sophie, whose life had been very largely spent among husbandless
wives of lofty ideals, had no wish to leave this present of God.
The unhurried meals, the foreknowledge of deliciously empty hours
to follow, the breadths of soft sky under which they walked
together and reckoned time only by their hunger or thirst; the
good grass beneath their feet that cheated the miles; their
discoveries, always together, amid the farms--Griffons, Rocketts,
Burnt House, Gale Anstey, and the Home Farm, where Iggulden of
the blue smock-frock would waylay them, and they would ransack
the old house once more; the long wet afternoons when, they
tucked up their feet on the bedroom's deep window-sill over
against the apple-trees, and talked together as never till then
had they found time to talk--these things contented her soul, and
her body throve.

"Have you realized," she asked one morning, "that we've been here
absolutely alone for the last thirty-four days?"