Yes," he added, "I do thank God with all my heart for
your sweet courage that day!" He drew Maud's hand into his own, as
they sate together on the grass just above the shingle of the
little bay, where the sea broke on the sands with crisp wavelets,
and ran like a fine sheet of glass over the beach. "Look at this
little hand," he said, "and let me try to believe that it is given
me of its own will and desire!"
"Yes," said Maud, smiling, "and you may cut it off at the wrist if
you like--I won't even wince. I have no further use for it, I
believe!" Howard folded it to his heart, and felt the little pulse
beat in the slender wrist; and presently the sun went down, a ball
of fire into the opalescent sea-line.
XXV
THE NEW KNOWLEDGE
But the weeks which followed Howard's marriage were a great deal
more than a refreshing discovery of companionable and even
unexpected qualities. There was something which came to him, of
which the words, the gestures, the signs of love seemed like faint
symbols; the essence of it was obscure to him; it reminded him of
how, as a child, a laughing group of which he was one had joined
hands to receive a galvanic shock; the circle had dislinked again
in a moment, with cries of surprise and pleasure; but to Howard it
had meant much more than that; the current gave him a sense of
awful force and potency, the potency of death. What was this
strange and fearful essence which could pass instantaneously
through a group--swifter even than thought--and leave the nerves
for a moment paralysed and tingling? Even so it was with him now.
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