“It is only that dirty money. My father has succeeded in getting it all.”
“All, Walter?” said she, again drawing herself away.
“Every shilling,” said he, dropping his arm.
“That will be very bad.”
“Not a doubt of it. I felt it just as you do.”
“And all our pretty plans are gone.”
“Yes;—all our pretty plans.”
“And what shall you do now?”
“There is only one thing. I shall go to India again. Of course it is just the same to me as though I were told that sentence of death had gone against me;—only it will not be so soon over.”
“Don’t say that, Walter.”
“Why not say it, my dear, when I feel it?”
“But you don’t feel it. I know it must be bad for you, but it is not quite that. I will not think that you have nothing left worth living for.”
“I can’t ask you to go with me to that happy Paradise.”
“But I can ask you to take me,” she said;—“though perhaps it will be better that I should not.”
“My darling!—my own darling!” Then she came back to him and laid her head upon his shoulders, and lifted his hand till it came again round her waist. And he kissed her forehead, and smoothed her hair. “Swear to me,” she said, “that whatever happens you will not put me away from you.”
“Put you away, dearest! A man doesn’t put away the only morsel he has to keep him from starving. But yet as I came up here this morning I resolved that I would put you away.”
“Walter!”
“And even now I know that they will tell me that I should do so. How can I take you out there to such a life as that without having the means of keeping a house over your head?”
“Officers do marry without fortunes.”
“Yes;—and what sort of a time do their wives have? Oh, Mary, my own, my own, my own!—it is very bad! You cannot understand it all at once, but it is very bad.”
“If it be better for you, Walter—” she said, again drawing herself away.
“It is not that, and do not say that it is. Let us at any rate trust each other.”
She gave herself a little shake before she answered him. “I will trust you in everything;—as God is my judge, in everything. What you tell me to do, I will do. But, Walter, I will say one thing first. I can look forward to nothing but absolute misery in any life that will separate me from you. I know the difference between comfort and discomfort in money matters, but all that is as a feather in the balance. You are my god upon earth, and to you I must cling. Whether you be away from me or with me, I must cling to you the same. If I am to be separated from you for a time, I can do it with hope. If I am to be separated from you forever, I shall still do so—with despair. And now I will trust you, and I will do whatever you tell me. If you forbid me to call you mine any longer—I will obey, and will never reproach you.”
“I will always be yours,” he said, taking her again to his heart.
“Then, dearest, you shall not find me wanting for anything you may ask of me. Of course you can’t decide at present.”
“I have decided that I must go to India. I have asked for the exchange.”
“Yes;—I understand; but about our marriage. It may be that you should go out first. I would not be unmaidenly, Walter; but remember this—the sooner the better, if I can be a comfort to you;—but I can bear any delay rather than be a clog upon you.”
Marrable, as he had walked up the hill—and during all his thoughts, indeed, since he had been convinced that the money was gone from him—had been disposed to think that his duty to Mary required him to give her up. He had asked her to be his wife when he believed his circumstances to be other than they were; and now he knew that the life he had to offer to her was one of extreme discomfort. He had endeavoured to shake off any idea that as he must go back to India it would be more comfortable for himself to return without than with a wife. He wanted to make the sacrifice of himself, and had determined that he would do so. Now, at any rate for the moment, all his resolves were
