“And do you really love me, Laura?” he asked, his face bent over the beautiful head which seemed to have found so natural a resting place upon his shoulder. “If there had been no such thing as my cousin Jasper’s will, and you and I had met in the outside world, do you think I am the man your heart would have chosen?”
“That is too abstruse a question in metaphysics,” she answered, laughingly. “I only know that my heart chose you, and that papa’s will—I must call him by the old name—did not influence my choice. Don’t you think that is quite enough for you to know?”
“It is all I desire to know, my loveliest. Or not quite all. I should like to know—out of mere idle curiosity—when you first began to think me not altogether despicable.”
“Do you want the history of the case from the very beginning?”
“From the eggs to the apples, from the very first instant when your heart began to beat a little more kindly for me than for all the rest of the world.”
“I will tell you—”
She paused, and looked up at him with a smile of innocent coquetry.
“Yes, dearest.”
“When you have told me the history of your life, from the instant when I became more to you than the common herd of women.”
His first answer was a deep sigh.
“Ah, dear love, my case was different. I struggled against my passion.”
“Why?”
“Because I felt myself unworthy of you.”
“That was foolish.”
“No, dear, it was wise and right. You are like a happy child, Laura; your past is a blank page, it has no dark secrets—”
He felt her trembling as he spoke. Had his words frightened her? Did she begin to divine the dangers that hemmed him around?
“Dearest, I don’t want to alarm you: but in the past experience of a man of my age there is generally one page he would give ten years of his life to cancel. I have a dark page. Oh, my love, my love, if I felt myself really worthy of you my heart would hardly hold my happiness. It would break with too great a joy. Men’s hearts have so broken. When did I begin to love you? Why, on the night I first entered this house—the cheerless winter night, when I came, like the prodigal son, weary of the husks and the stye, vaguely yearning for some better life. Your thrilling eyes, your grave, sweet smile, your tender voice, came upon me like a revelation of a new world, in which womanhood meant goodness and purity and truth. My senses were as yet unmoved by your beauty; my mind reverenced your goodness. You were no more to me than a picture in a gallery, but you thrilled my soul as the picture might have done; you awakened new thoughts, you opened a door into heaven. Yes, Laura, admiration, reverence, worship, those began on the first night. Before I left Hazlehurst, worship had warmed into passionate love.”
“Yet you stayed away from January to April?”
“My absence was one long conflict with my love.”
“And from April to December—after—”
“After you had shown me your heart, dear love, and I knew that you might be mine. That last absence needed a more desperate courage. Well, I came back, you see. Love was stronger than wisdom.”
“Why must it be unwise for us to love each other?”
“Only because of my unworthiness.”
“Then we will forget your unworthiness, or, if your modesty likes better, I will love you and your unworthiness too. I do not suppose you a faultless paragon, John. Papa told me that you had been extravagant and foolish. You will not be extravagant and foolish any more, will you, dear, when you are a sober, married man?”
“No, love.”
“And we will both strive to do all the good we can with our large fortune.”
“You shall be the chief disposer of it.”
“No, no, I would not have it so on any account. You must be lord and master. I shall expect you to be quite the ideal country squire, the sun and centre of our little universe, the general benefactor. I will be your prime minister and adviser, if you like. I know all the poor people for ten miles round, on our estate, and on other people’s land. I know their wants and their weaknesses. Yes, John, I think I can help you in doing much good; in making improvements that will not ruin you, and will make the lives of the labouring people much happier.”
“Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.”
quoted John, tenderly. “Can I ever be happier than in obeying you?”
“Do you know that it will be a great happiness to me not to leave the Manor,” said Laura, presently. “You must not think me mercenary, or that I value a big house and a large fortune. It is not so, John. I could live quite contentedly on the income papa left me, more than contentedly, in a cottage with you; but I love the Manor for its own sake. I know every tree in the grounds, and have watched them all growing, and sketched and painted them until I almost know the form of every branch. And I have lived so long
