They stood thus for many minutes, comforting each other wordlessly for pain and guilt and for all that might have been.

"And so," he said finally, "in one hour's time you will be gone and we can both start to reconstruct our lives."

"Forgiven and forgiving," she said.

"Pardon and peace," he said.

"Yes."

His cheek rested against the top of her head briefly. "It cannot be done together, Judith? Is it too late for us?"

She heard a gulp of a sob suddenly and realized in some horror that it had come from her. “I don't know," she said, and she tried to push away from him.

But she was pulled back against him by arms that were suddenly as hard as steel bands and when she raised her face to avoid suffocation against his neckcloth it was to look into eyes that were themselves brimming with tears. He lowered his head and kissed her fiercely, a wet and breathless kiss.

"Let us do it, Judith," he said. "Let us give life and love and peace a chance together, shall we? I cannot contemplate any of the three of them without you. Not again. I don't have the strength to do it again. I love you. Is that what I told you with my body yesterday? Did you recognize the language? I am telling you with words now. I love you. I always have."

He took one of her hands and held the palm to his mouth. She stood smiling up at him until gradually he relaxed and smiled back.

"I think we had better get married and be done with it," he said. "Don't you?"

Her smile deepened.

"You are holding out for the poetic speech and the down-on-one-knee business, aren't you?" he said.

But before her smile could give place to laughter they were interrupted. One of the doors opened slightly and two little figures appeared around it.

"Mama," Rupert said, "Aunt Amy is not back yet and it is beginning to snow again and Mr. Rockford said he would take us sledding if we had nothing else to do. May we stay?"

"The dog was sick all over the floor," Kate said.

"Oh, dear," the marquess said, keeping his arms firmly about Judith when she would have pulled away. “You must have been feeding him muffins again, were you?"

"And toast," Kate said.

"May we, Mama?" Rupert asked.

"How would you like to stay forever and a day?" the marquess asked. "If your mama would just consent to marry me, you know, you could do so. And go sledding and skating and have plenty of company from the children in the village. And I could teach you to ride a real horse, Rupert, and to play cricket as well as your papa. And Kate could see the puppies when they are born in the spring and train one to sleep on her bed all night without once wetting the blankets or being sick all over the floor.''

"Ye-es!" Rupert yelled. "Famous. Will you, Mama?"

Kate had crossed the room and was clinging to a tassel of the marquess's Hessian. "A black puppy?" she asked. "All black?"

"I shall see what I can arrange," he said.

"Will you, Mama?" Dark and pleading eyes gazed up at her from beneath soft auburn curls.

"Will you, Judith?" Lord Denbigh's eyes smiled into hers. "Will you make it unanimous? It is already three against one."

“One thing I have noticed about you from the start,'' she said, "is that you will quite unscrupulously get to me through my children."

"Guilty," he said.

"And it works every time," she said.

"Does it?"

"Yes."

"This time too?"

"Yes."

"You will marry me?"

She smiled broadly at him.

He sighed. "Kate," he said. "Stand back if you will. And watch carefully. This is going to happen to you one day. And you watch too, Rupert, my lad. You are going to have to do this one of these fine days. I am about to get down on one knee to propose to your mama."

"My Christmas beau," Judith said fondly, smiling down at him as he suited action to words.