Her hand, brown and shapely, lay in her lap.

As Franklin gathered the slack of the reins, his own hand approaching hers, it seemed to him that an actual emanation, a subtle warmth, stole from her hand to his, an unspoken appeal from some vital source.

A vague, delicious sense of happiness came over him.

He too fell quite silent.

He guided the horses as though he saw neither them nor aught else between him and some far-off horizon.