"I should like to go to Chester," she said, "now--this evening. Would you mind? There's such lots to see, and something might happen at any moment to stop our--"

"Our incredible honeymoon?" he said. "But what could?"

"Oh, Aunt Alice might be ill and want me"--and hated herself for the words. The moment she had uttered them she felt that in using her as a defense she had almost as good as called down the wrath of the G.o.ds on Aunt Alice, whom she loved. "Oh, a thousand things might happen," she added, quickly.

"My lady's will is my law," said Edward, and within an hour or two they were on the way to Chester. Charles did not, this time, make his journey in the dog-box. She smiled on the guard, and Charles traveled in a first-cla.s.s carriage with his master and his mistress. He sat between them and was happy as only they can be happy who have combined duty and pleasure. He had chased sheep--this was obviously not wrong, since master had not punished him for it. He had bitten a stranger at mistress's bidding. Mistress was evidently one who sympathized with the natural aspirations of right-minded dogs. Charles knew now how much he loved her. He leaned himself against her, heavily asleep, now and then growling softly as he slept. His mistress felt that in his dreams he was still biting Mr. Schultz. He was.

XVI

CAERNARVON

SOMEHOW or other Chester failed to charm. Neither of them could understand why. Perhaps the Stratford Hotel had given them a momentary surfeit of half-timber; perhaps the fact that the skies turned gray and subst.i.tuted drizzle for sunshine had something to do with it; perhaps it was the extreme badness of the hotel to which ill-luck led them, a hotel that smelt of stale seed-cake and bad coffee and bad mutton-fat, and was furnished almost entirely with bentwood chairs and wicker tables; perhaps it was the added aggravation of seeing a river which might have been to them a second Medway, and seeing it quite impossible and miserably pitted with little rain-spots. Whatever the reason, even next morning's sunshine and the beauty of the old walls and the old walks failed to dispel the gloom. They bought rain-coats and umbrellas in a shop that had known ruffs and farthingales, paid their hotel bill, which was as large as the hotel was bad, and took the afternoon train to Caernarvon.

The glimpse of Conway Castle from the train cheered them a little. The sight of the sea did more--but still he felt a cloud between them, and still she felt more and more that he was aware of it. Charles sat between them, as before, and over that stout white back his eyes met hers.

"What is it?" he asked, suddenly. "Yesterday I thought it was the half-timber and the rain--this morning I thought it was yesterday, but it isn't. Something's happened that you haven't told me."

She turned her eyes from his and stroked the flappy white ears of Charles.

"Hasn't it?" he urged. "Ah, you will tell me, won't you? Was it something from the aunts?"

For there had been letters that morning, sent on from Warwick.

"No, the letters were all right. Everybody's furious except Aunt Alice, but she's the only one that matters."

"Then what is it?"

"It's almost gone," she said. "Oh, look at the rocks and the heather on that great hill."

"Then there was something," he said; "something you won't tell me."

"Not won't," she said, gently.

"Can't? Something that's happened and you can't tell me?"

He remembered how on the last night at Warwick he had held that hand of hers against his face. They had seemed so very near then. And now there was a gulf suddenly opened between them--the impa.s.sable gulf of a secret--a secret that was hers and not his.

"Yes, something did happen and I have promised not to tell you. If ever I can, I will."

"Something has come between us and you have promised not to tell me what it is?"

"Oh no--no!" she said, very earnestly, and her dear eyes looked full in his. "Nothing has come between us--nothing could--"

He realized, with some impatience, that Charles, at least, was between them. But for Charles he could, quite naturally and _ayant l'air de rien_ have leaned a little toward her as he spoke--so that his shoulder might, perhaps, if she had leaned also, have just touched hers. But across Charles this could not be. And to lean, after the removal of Charles, would bear an air of premeditation not to be contemplated for an instant.

"If it's nothing that comes between us--" he said. "But even then, it's something that's made you sad, made you different. I suppose, though, it's unreasonable to expect that there shall be no secrets between any two human beings, no matter how--how friendly they are," he ended, with conscious lameness.

"Of course it's unreasonable," she said; "it would mean, wouldn't it, that neither of us could ever be trusted by any one else? Whereas now people can tell you things they wouldn't want to tell me, and tell me things they wouldn't care about telling you."

"Then this--I'm not worrying you to tell me--but if it is somebody else's secret--"

"Well, it is," she said. "Now, are you satisfied? And if you'll only let me look at the sea and the mountains and the heather the Chester cloud will go right away. It's nearly gone now. And I've never seen any real mountains before, not mountains like these, with warm colors and soft shapes--only the Pyrenees and the Maritime Alps, and they look just like white cardboard cut into points and pasted on blue sugar-paper--that's the sky."

"It's prettier at sunrise, with the mountains like pink and white sugar, and Corsica showing like a little cloud over the sea. We had a villa at Antibes when I was a little chap, before we lost our money. We'll go there again some day, shall we, and see if the mountains have changed at all? Not this winter, I think. I've never had an English winter free from work I didn't like. I must have just this one. You don't mind?"

What he hoped she wouldn't mind was less the English winter than his calm a.s.sumption that there was plenty of time, that they would always be together and might go where they would and when--since all the future was before them--all the future, and each other's companionship all through it.

"Why should I mind?" she answered. "I've never had a free winter in England, either, or anywhere else, for that matter."

"Then that's settled," said he, comfortably, "and you can't think what a comfort it is to me that you don't hate Charles. You might so easily have hated dogs."

"If I'd been that sort of person I shouldn't be here."

"Ah, but Charles might so easily have been the one kind of dog you couldn't stand. He's not everybody's dog, by any means. Are you, Charles? Of course it's almost incredible that this earth should contain people who don't like Charles, yet so it is."

"The people he's bitten?"

"Oh, those!" said Edward, adding, with a fine air of tolerance, "I could almost find excuses for them--they've not seen the finer aspects of his character. No, there are actually human beings to whom Charles's personality does not appeal--persons whom he has borne with patiently, whom he has refrained from biting, or even sniffing at the trousers legs of. Prejudice is a mysterious and terrible thing. Oh, but it's a good world--all the same."

"Isn't it," she said, "with the sun shining and the mountains and the rocks and the sea all there, just like a picture? Oh, there's no doubt but it's a beautiful world."

"And you and I and Charles going out to see it all together. It's a fine world, every bit of it--and the little bit we're just coming to is Caernarvon."

Caernarvon it was, and they spent nearly a week there. The castle is all that a castle should be; and as for the sea, what can be better, unless it's in Cornwall; and there is Anglesea, lying flat against the sky, and the Elephant Mountain and the Seven Sisters, and old Snowdon topping all.

The inn was comfortable, the weather had grown kind again, the hostler was one of those to whom Charles's personality so much appealed that the dog was almost too replete with good living to appreciate the rats provided for his recreation. This hostler, Owen Llewellyn, became such an enthusiast in the service of Charles that Mr. Basingstoke was only able by a fortunate chance, the strong exercise of authority, and a golden offering for the soothing of wounded feelings to stop the entertainment which Owen had arranged with several of his friends in a handy field and the cool of the evening: a quiet little dog-fight, as the friends indignantly explained, with Charles and a worthy antagonist filling the leading roles.

"It isn't as if the dogs wouldn't enjoy it more than any one else, and me putting all my money on your dog, sir," one of the friends (from London) complained. "There ain't nothing that that there dog 'u'd love better nor a bit of a sc.r.a.p. An' you to go agin the animal's natural desires and keep him for a lap-dog for the lady. It ain't right," he ended, feelingly, as the lap-dog was led off, yapping defiance at the adversary whom, so his admirers swore, he could have licked hollow with one paw tied behind him.

It was at Caernarvon that Edward and his princess lived the quiet life that does not lead to sight-seeing. There was something poignantly domestic to his mind in those long mornings in green fields or among the broken and still beautiful colonnades of the castle, he with a book from which he read to her, she with some work of embroidery in which a bright needle flashed among pleasant-colored silks. It was in the castle, in one of those mysterious narrow pa.s.sages, that they came face to face with a tall, handsome man of middle age, who shook Edward's hand with extreme vigor, clapped him on the back, and announced that he would have run a mile for the sake of seeing him. Edward would have run two to avoid the meeting, because the eyes of the back-clapper were turned on Katherine, awaiting the introduction which must come. Colonel Bertram, an old friend of Edward's father's, knew well enough that Edward was an only child. No brother-and-sister tale was possible here.

"Do you hang out in these parts?" Edward asked. "I wonder you knew me. I don't believe we've met since I was about sixteen."

While he spoke he looked a question at her, and read the slightest possible sign with which she answered.

"Colonel Bertram--my wife. Katherine, the Colonel used to tip me sovereigns when I was at school, and he gave me my first pony."

The colonel's grip ground her rings into her hand. "'Pon my word!" he said, "I don't know when I've been so pleased. You must come and dine with us, my boy, to-night-- To-morrow? Make him come, Mrs. Basingstoke.

I know it's not manners to intrude on a honeymoon, but I am such an old friend, and our meeting like this is such a remarkable coincidence, almost like the finger of Providence--upon my soul it is."

"It's very, very nice of you to ask us," she said, in a voice of honey, "but, unfortunately, we're leaving this afternoon."

"Well, at any rate, let's lunch together. No, of course; too late for that. Well, look here, you've seen the castle, of course; come and see over the prison. I'm governor there, for my sins. Come and let me show you my prison!"

His simple pride in the only sight he had to show prevailed even against the shrinking she felt and did not wholly understand.