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humble in comparison, my patrimony minimal. However, I was recently discharged from the Royal Navy. As captain of the Daedalus , I was lucky enough to be awarded three purses. I will be able to support my wife without aid from her family.”
    Dobson had no doubt the man had been a fierce officer. He had the look of a warrior. And again, his eye was caught by the way the two held hands, so tightly… almost desperately… certainly tenderly.
    Lady Grace beamed at him. “Mr. Barry was the youngest officer ever to be made captain in the Royal Navy. He is the adopted son of Sir Griffin Barry, and far too humble in recounting his station.”
    “So you are Captain Barry and Lady Grace Ryburn?”
    Barry shook his head. “I have been granted an honorable discharge. It’s Mr. Barry now.”
    Again Dobson’s eyes were drawn to the hands so tightly clasped before him. Barry must have been injured, some disability that didn’t show. Dobson began to feel a bit more sympathetic. “Marriage,” he observed, “is one of the most weighty ceremonies in a man’s life.”
    “Nothing will ever be more important to me,” Mr. Barry said quietly.
    Dobson cleared his throat. He wasn’t accustomed to this sort of emotion. “As it says in the Lord’s book, to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” He paused, organizing his thoughts. This pair, charming though they were, ought to return to their own parish and post banns. A ceremony without friends or family was no way to start a life together.
    Lady Grace spoke before he could continue. “Mr. Barry has received His Majesty’s highest commendations for bravery. But now the time has come when he need not defend our shores. Finally, I have him home with me.”
    There was nothing Dobson could say to that. She’d voided his argument. And honestly, even in the midst of a wretched cold, he no longer cared to refuse their request. The eyes of these two made him remember why he became a priest in the first place.
    He rose without another word, and escorted them into the church.
    After he donned his tippet and cross, he called them to the altar, summoning his churchwarden and housekeeper to act as witnesses. The couple came before him still holding hands.
    For a reason he hardly understood, he chose a different Bible verse from that which he generally read in the performance of the sacrament.
    “And Ruth said, ‘Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.’ ”
    Reverend Dobson never forgot this particular wedding. It restored some deep part of his soul that had grown hungry, and small, and come near to being cynical.
    When he finally pronounced the words, “I declare thee man and wife,” the joy in Mr. and Mrs. Barry’s faces was enough to bring tears to his eyes.
    He kept the memory of that marriage in his mind. It wasn’t often that he saw two people whom he considered to be blessed by their love for each other. It was a salutary reminder of God’s gifts on earth. In his more fanciful moments, he even thought that the name of the bride was a message in itself.
    “God resisteth the proud,” he would tell himself, thinking of the soldier’s dark, haunted eyes, “but giveth grace unto the humble.”

 
    Five
    A rbor House was completely empty, since the Barrys were still abroad, and the servants had been sent home for a holiday. Colin told his coachman to put the horses snug in the stables and then find lodging in the village and be back in the morning.
    They woke in the big, silent house and ate porridge for breakfast—ably cooked by Colin, who had learned such things at sea—after which Grace retreated to the summerhouse to paint, and Colin walked to the village to find help.
    Winkle was small, with only a few streets, graced by names such as