Her delight in him never seemed to fail. Sometimes it seemed to him strange that the difference in their ages did not affect her more. She never gave him a hint that she thought him too old for her. He once told her that he was nearly fifty, but she had answered with a happy laugh that she did not like boys.Naomi walked to church on her father's arm. She held her head down, and her bridesmaids saw her neck grow pink below the golden fluff on the nape. She hid her face from Reuben and would not look at him as they stood side by side before Rye altar. No one could hear her responses, they were spoken so faintly, she was the typical Victorian bride, all shy, trembling, and blushing.Naomi had been taken back to Odiam, when Harry, still motionless and apparently dead, was lifted on a gate, and borne away. Dark curds of smoke drifted among the willows, and the acrid smell of powder clung to the hillside like an evil ghost. The place where Harry had lain was marked by charred and trampled grass, and a great pool of blood was sinking into the ground ... it seemed to Reuben, as he turned shudderingly away, as if Boarzell were drinking it upeagerly, greedily, as a thirsty land drinks up its first watering.Here the sound of voices reminded him that he might have difficulties with his family, but Reuben's attitude towards his family, unless it forced itself directly into his life, was always a little aloof.