"He shall have no power to anger me," he answered. "I swear that too.
Do you know that but to-day he struck me?"

"Struck you? You did not tell me that!"

"My quarrel was not with him but with the rogue that sent him. I
laughed at the blow. Was he not sacred to me?"

"He is good at heart, Noll," she pursued. "In time he will come to
love you as you deserve, and you will come to know that he, too,
deserves your love."

"He deserves it now for the love he bears to you."

"And you will think ever thus during the little while of waiting that
perforce must lie before us?"

"I shall never think otherwise, sweet. Meanwhile I shall avoid him,
and that no harm may come should he forbid me Godolphin Court I'll even
stay away. In less than a year you will be of full age, and none may
hinder you to come and go. What is a year, with such hope as mine to
still impatience?"

She stroked his face. "Art very gentle with me ever, Noll," she
murmured fondly. "I cannot credit you are ever harsh to any, as they
say."

"Heed them not," he answered her. "I may have been something of all
that, but you have purified me, Rose. What man that loved you could be
aught but gentle." He kissed her, and stood up. "I had best be going