“They looked just for all the world like man and wife,” said Trimmer, when he went back to his pantry, “and I hope before long it’ll be that. They’ll make a fine couple, and I’m sure they’re fond o’ one another already.”
“It isn’t in Miss Laura to marry a man she wasn’t fond of, not for all the fortunes in Christendom,” retorted Mrs. Trimmer, who had been cook and housekeeper nearly as long as her husband had been butler.
“Well, if I was young woman I’d marry a’most anybody rather than I’d lose such a ’ome as Hazlehurst Manor,” answered Trimmer. “I ain’t a moneygrubber, but a good ’ome ain’t to be trifled with. And if they don’t marry, and the estate goes to build a norsepital, what’s to become of you and me? Some folks in our position would be all agog for setting up in the public line and making our fortunes, but I’ve seen more fortunes lost than won that way, and I know when I’m well off. Good wages paid reg’lar, and everything found for me, is all I ask.”
After luncheon Laura and John went for a walk in the grounds. A mutual inclination led them to the shrubbery where they had parted that April night. The curving avenue of good old trees made a pleasant walk even at this season, when not a green leaf was left, and the ragged crows’ nests showed black amidst the delicate tracery of the topmost branches. The air was even milder than in the morning. It might have been an afternoon early in October. John Treverton stopped in front of the rugged trunk of the great chestnut under which Laura and he had parted. The young leaves had made a canopy of shade that night; now the big branches stood out dark and bare, stained with moss and weather. The grass at the foot of the tree was strewn with green husks and broken twigs, dead leaves, and shining brown nuts.
“I think it was at this spot we parted,” said John. “Do you remember?”
“I have a vague recollection that it was somewhere about here,” Laura answered, carelessly.
She knew the spot to an inch, but was not going to admit as much.
He took her hand, and drew it gently through his arm, as if they were starting upon a pilgrimage somewhere, then bent his head and kissed the delicate bare hand—a lovely tapering hand that could only belong to a lady, a hand which was in itself something for a lover to adore.
“Darling, when are we to be married?” he asked softly, almost in a whisper, as if an unspeakable shyness took hold of him at that critical moment.
“What a question,” cried Laura, with pretended astonishment. “Who has ever talked about marriage? You have never asked me to be your wife.”
“Did I not? But I asked you if you were angry with your adopted father for his will, and you said No. That was as much as to say you were content we should gratify the good old man’s wish. And we can only do so by becoming man and wife. Laura, I love you more than I can ever say, and loving you as I do, though I am conscious of many shortcomings—yes, though I know myself in many respects unworthy to be your husband—a pauper—unsuccessful—without name or fame less than nobody—still, darling, I fall upon my knees here, at your feet; I, who never knelt to a woman before, and have too seldom knelt to my God, and sue to you in forma pauperis. Perhaps in all England there lives no man less worthy to be your husband, save for the one merit of loving you with all his heart and soul.”
He was kneeling before her, bareheaded, at the foot of the old chestnut tree, among the rugged roots that curved in and out amidst the grass. Laura bent down, and touched his forehead with her lips. It was hardly a kiss. The sweet lips fluttered on his forehead for an instant and were gone. No butterfly’s wing was ever lighter.
“I will take you, dear,” she said gently, “with all your faults, whatever their number. I have a feeling that I can trust you—all the more, perhaps, because you do not praise yourself. We will try to do our duty to each other, and to our dead benefactor, and to use his wealth nobly, shall we not, John?”
“You will use it nobly, love; you can do nothing that is not noble,” he answered, gravely.
He was pale to the lips, and there was no gladness in his look, though it was full of love.
X
Engaged
John Treverton stayed at the Manor House till after dark, alone with his betrothed, and happier than he had ever been in his life. Yes, happy, though it was with a desperate happiness as of a child plucking wild flowers on the sunny edge of an abyss. He must have been something less or more than human if he had not been happy in Laura Malcolm’s company today, as they sat by the fire in the gloaming, side by side, her head leaning against his shoulder, his arm round her waist, her dark eyes hidden under drooping lids as they gazed dreamily downward at the smouldering logs; the room lit dimly by the fire-glow, grotesque shadows coming and going on the wall behind them, like phantom forms of good or evil angels hovering near them as they sat face to face with fate, the one unconscious of all danger, the other reckless and defiant.
Now that the word had been spoken, that they two were pledged to each other to the end of life, Laura let her heart go out to her lover without reserve. She was not afraid to let him see her fondness. She did not seek to make her love more precious to him by simulated coldness. She gave
