The Beggar Man Part 4

"Go down the West End--the park--anywhere! I'll let you know when to stop." He sat down again beside Faith. "Well, do you think you'd like to be my wife?" he asked.

Faith shrank away from him, her face flus.h.i.+ng.

"I don't know anything about you. You don't know anything about me," she stammered. He smiled.

"That can soon be remedied. My name is Nicholas Forrester, my _real_ name, that is! I've been known by lots of others in my lifetime, but that's neither here nor there. I've got more money than I know what to do with. I'm like the poor devil in 'Brewster's Millions'--everything I touch turns to gold. Have you read 'Brewster's Millions'?"

"No."

"I'll tell you the story some day. There isn't time now. But if you marry me you can buy any mortal thing you like, except the moon or Buckingham Palace. Doesn't that attract you?" he asked dryly.

The colour surged back into Faith's pale face. She leaned a little towards him.

"_Anything!_" she asked.

The man looked faintly disappointed.

"I thought you were going to be different from other women," he said curtly. "Well, what is it you want, diamonds?"

"Diamonds!" She echoed the word blankly. "Oh, no, I was wondering if I could take mother away from Poplar, and send the twins to a nice school.

They have to go to the Board School now," she explained. "If I can do that for them, I shan't want anything for myself." She raised apologetic eyes. "It's asking an awful lot, I know," she added.

The Beggar Man laid his hand for a moment on hers. Such a strong, kind hand it was, that instinctively the fear of him that had been in Faith's heart died away.

"It's not asking anything," he said. "We'll send the twins to the finest school in England if you like, and your mother can have a house in the country and anything else she wants--if you'll marry me!"

Faith's cheeks were crimson; her eyes on fire. It never occurred to her for a moment to refuse.

She looked up at him with brown eyes of grat.i.tude unutterable. "I should just _love_ to marry you," she said fervently.

The Beggar Man said "Humph!" For a moment there was a silence, during which he looked at her doubtfully; then:

"What about your mother?" he asked abruptly. "What do you think she will say?"

Faith's face fell a little; in her eagerness and excitement she had forgotten what her mother would say.

"I--I'm afraid she won't quite like it," she said slowly.

She was sure that her mother would not like it. Mrs. Ledley had always been so careful about Faith's choice of friends that the girl knew what an astonis.h.i.+ng proposal she would consider this offer of marriage to be.

Mrs. Ledley could be very firm when she chose, and Faith knew well what opposition she would have to encounter.

A sudden idea flashed across her mind.

"But we need not tell her, need we?"

A faint smile crossed his face.

"You mean till we are married?"

"Yes."

There was another queer little silence, then the Beggar Man asked, with sudden change of voice: "Do you often keep things from your mother--like this?"

She shook her head.

"I never have, until now. There's never been anything to keep. n.o.body has ever asked me to marry him before, but I thought--she would be so glad afterwards, when I told her how rich you were, and what we could do for her and for the twins."

"I see."

The Beggar Man looked away from her out of the window. The rain was still falling steadily, but he did not notice it. He was trying to see ahead into the future and wondering ... wondering....

Presently he turned again to the girl beside him.

"Of course," he said abruptly, "I should be a fool to ask you if you've got any ... any personal regard for me! How could you have when we've only met twice."

He waited hopefully it seemed, but Faith did not know how to answer him, and he went on rather ruefully:

"But, all the same, you're willing to marry me without telling your mother till afterwards?"

"Yes."

"Isn't that rather foolish?"

She flushed sensitively.

"I don't know what you mean."

"I mean, that for all you know, I might be the biggest blackguard unhung. I might be wanted by the police--I might be all of a hundred and one unsavoury things. Do you realize that?"

Faith laughed now. She was not in the least afraid that he could be any of these things.

"I think you're the kindest man I've ever met," she said.

"Do you?" He laughed dryly. "But, then, you haven't met many men, I take it."

"No."

Another little silence.

"Have you got a mother?" Faith asked shyly.

He turned his head.

"I haven't a relative in the whole world as far as I know. I was born in Australia, and my mother died there, and my father broke his neck when I was fifteen."

"Broke his neck?" echoed Faith, horrified.

"Yes. We had a farm in Australia, twenty-eight miles from a town, and, when he was riding back home one night, the pony caught its foot and threw him." He paused. "I found him lying along the track next morning,"