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The trembling woman who had held him in her arms at Westleydale had never shown herself to him again. She had been called, created, for an end beyond herself. The woman he had married again was pure from passion, and of an uncomfortable reluctance in the giving and taking of caresses. He forced himself to respect her reluctance.
For the first moment, when she looked from it to her husband, her mind refused to associate him with that degradation. Reverence held her, and a sudden memory of her passion in the woods at Westleydale. Mercifully, they veiled her intelligence, and made it impossible for her to realise that he should have sunk so low. Then she remembered.
She found herself again in Westleydale, walking in green aisles of the holy, mystic, cathedral woods. The tall beech-stems were the pillars of the temple. A still light came through them, guiding her to the beech-tree that she knew. And she saw an angel lying under the beech-tree. It lay on its side, with its wings stretched out so that the right wing covered the left.
They turned off the high road, walked for ten minutes across an upland field, and came to the bridle-path that led down into the beech-woods of Westleydale, in the heart of the hills. They followed a mossy trail. The shade fell thin, warm, and coloured, from leaves so tender that the light passed through their half-transparent panes.
There were other people in the carriage, and Anne was afraid they would be annoyed at Peggy's singing. But they seemed to like it as much as she and Majendie. Nobody was ever annoyed with Peggy. In Westleydale the beech trees were in golden leaf. It was green underfoot and on the folding hills.
"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth." She closed her eyes under the peace of the beloved words. And as she closed them she felt herself once more in the arms of the green hills, the folding hills of Westleydale. She shook off the obsession and prayed another prayer.
He had simply to accept this emotional parsimony as one of the many curious facts about Anne. He no longer went to Edith for an explanation of them, for the Anne he had known in Westleydale was too sacred to be spoken of. An immense reverence possessed him when he thought of her. As for the actual present Anne, loyalty was part of the large simplicity of his nature, and he could not criticise her.
You think I'm always wanting something. What is it that you think I want?" "Well do you remember Westleydale?" She drew back. "Westleydale? What has put that into your head?" He grew desperate under her evasions, and plunged into his theme. "Well, that jolly baby we saw there in the wood you looked so happy when you grabbed it, and I thought, perhaps "
"Do you mean to-day?" Her upper lip lifted, and the two teeth showed again on the pale rose of its twin. In spite of the dignity of her proportions, Anne had the look of a child contemplating some hardly permissible delight. "Now, this minute. There's a train to Westleydale at nine fifty." "It would be very nice. But how about business?" "Business be " "No, no, not that word."
At times, when the high spiritual life died down in sleep, she slipped from her trouble, and turned, with her arms stretched towards him, where he lay. In her dreams he came to her with the low cry she had heard in the wood at Westleydale. And in her dreams she was tender; but her waking thoughts were sad and hard.
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