Nell, of Shorne Mills Part 29

She sat, her hands clasped tightly, her eyes downcast and hidden by the long dark lashes. Every word he was faltering was making the strangest, sweetest music in her ears and in her heart. That he should miss her--want to come back to her!--oh, it could not--could not be true!

"Do you know why?" he went on, looking up at her with a touch of anxiety, of something like fear in his eyes, for her downcast face told him nothing; her pallor might only be a sign of fear. "It was because I--love you."

She trembled, and raised her eyes for one instant; but she could not meet his--not yet.

"I love you," he said, his voice deepening, so that it was almost hoa.r.s.e. "I love you."

Just the three words, but how much they mean! Is it any wonder that the poet and the novelist are never weary of singing and writing them? and that the world will never be weary of hearing and reading them? How much hangs upon the three little words! Love: it is the magic word which transforms a life. It means a heaven too great for mortals to imagine, or a h.e.l.l too deep to fathom. To Nell the words spoke of a mystery which she could not penetrate, but which filled her heart with a joy so great as almost to still it forever.

"Dearest, I have frightened you!" he said, as she sat so silent and so motionless. "Forgive me! It seems so sudden to you; but I--I have felt it for days past, have known it so long, it seems to me. I have been thinking, dwelling on it. Nell, do you--care for me? Can you love me?"

Her hands unclasped and went with a swift motion to her eyes, and covered them. His heart sank with a sudden dread. She was not only frightened; she did not care for him--or was it because she did not know? She was so young, so girlish, so innocent!

"Forgive me--forgive me!" he pleaded, and he ventured to touch her arm.

"I have--startled you; you did not expect--it was unfair to bring you here. But I can't take it back. I love you with all my heart and soul.

See, Nell--you will let me call you that? It's the name I love above all others--the name I think of you by. I--I won't hara.s.s you. You--you shall have time to think. I will go away for--for a few days--and you shall think over----No, no!" he broke off, springing to his feet and bending over her with a sudden pa.s.sion which swept all before it. "I can't go. I can't leave you again, unless--unless I go forever. I must have your answer now--now! Speak to me, Nell. 'Yes' or 'No'?"

He drew her hands from her face as she rose, and her eyes were lifted and met his. Love's sweet surrender shone in them; and, with a cry of wonder and joy, he caught her to him.

"Nell, Nell!" was all that he could say. "Is it true? You--you love me, Nell?"

She hid her face on his breast, and her hands trembled on his shoulders.

"Yes--yes," she breathed, almost inaudibly. Then: "Do I?"

CHAPTER XIII.

He took her face in his hands and turned it up to him, but paused as her lips nearly met his.

"Do you? Why, don't you know, dearest?" he asked tenderly.

"Yes, ah! yes, I do," she said, and the tears sprang to her eyes as their lips met. "It was because I loved you that I was so sorry when you went; that every hour and day was a misery to me, and seemed to hang like lead; it was because I loved you that I could not think of anything else, and--and all the world became black and dark, and--and--I hated to be alive. It was because--because of that, was it not?"

He answered with the lover's mute language.

"And--and you love me! It seems so wonderful!" she murmured, looking at him with her eyes, now deep as violets and dewy with her tears. "So wonderful! Why--why do you?"

He laughed--the laugh that for the first time in his life had left his lips.

"Have you no looking-gla.s.s in your room, Nell?" he asked. "You beautiful angel! But not only because you are the loveliest----"

She put her hand to his lips, her face crimson; but he kissed it and laid it against his cheek.

--"You are not only the loveliest woman I know, but the sweetest, Nell,"

he said. "No man could help loving you."

"How foolis.h.!.+" she breathed; but, ah! the joy, the innocent pride that shone in her eyes! "You must have met, known, hundreds of beautiful women. I never thought that I--that any one could care for me----"

"Because there's not a spark of vanity in my Nell, thank G.o.d!" he said.

"See here, dearest, you speak of other women--it is because you are unlike any other woman I have ever known--thank G.o.d again!--because you are so. Ah, Nell! it's easier to love you than to tell you why. All I know is that I'm the happiest man on earth; that I don't deserve----"

His voice grew grave and his face clouded. "The best of us doesn't deserve the love of the worst woman; and I, who have got the sweetest, the dearest----Ah, Nell! if you knew how bad a bargain you have made!"

She laid her face against his hand, and her lips touched it with a kiss, and she laughed softly, as one laughs for mere joy which pants for adequate expression.

"I am satisfied--ah, yes! I am satisfied!" she whispered. "It is you who have made the bad bargain--an ignorant girl--just a girl! Why, d.i.c.k will laugh at you! And mamma will think you are too foolish for words."

He looked down at her--he was sitting on the bowlder now, and she was on the sand at his feet, her head resting against him, his arm round her.

"Mrs. Lorton knows nothing about me," he said. "I'm afraid, when she knows----"

His words did not affect her. In a sense, she was scarcely noting them.

This new happiness, this unspeakable joy, was taking complete possession of her. That his lips should have touched hers, that his arm should be round her, that her head should be resting against him, his kisses upon her hair, was all so wonderful that she could scarcely realize it. Would she awake presently and find that she was in her own room, with the pillow wet with the tears that had fallen because "Mr. Drake Vernon" had left Shorne Mills forever?

"Does she not?" she said easily. "She knows as much about you as I do, and I am content. But mamma will be pleased, because she likes you. And d.i.c.k"--she laughed, and her eyes glowed with her love for the boy--"d.i.c.k will yell, and will tease me out of my life. But he will be glad, because he is so very fond of you. What do you do to make everybody like you so much, Mr. Vernon?"

"Oh, 'Drake, Drake, Drake'!" he said.

"Drake," she murmured, and he stifled the word on her lips with kisses.

"I'm by no means sure that Mrs. Lorton will be pleased," he said, after a moment. "See here, Nell--I never saw such hair as yours. It is dark, almost black, and yet it is soft and like silk----"

"And it is all coming down. Ah, no, you cannot coil it up. Let it be for a moment. Do you really like it? d.i.c.k says it is like a horse's mane."

"d.i.c.k is a rude young scamp to whom I shall have to teach respect for his sister. But Mrs. Lorton, dearest--I'm afraid she won't be pleased. I ought to have told you, Nell, that I'm a poor man."

"Are you?"

She nestled a little closer, and scooped up the sand with her disengaged hand--the one he was not holding--and she spoke with an indifference which filled Drake to the brim with satisfaction.

"Yes," he said. "I was not always so poor; but I am one who has had losses, as Shakespeare puts it."

"I am sorry," she said simply, but still with a kind of indifference.

"Mamma said you must be rich because you--well, persons who are poor don't keep three horses and give diamond bracelets for presents."

She spoke with the frankness and ingenuousness of a child, and Drake stroked her hair as he would that of a child.

"Yes, that's reasonable enough," he said. "But I've lost my money lately. See?"

She nodded, and looked up at him a little more gravely.

"Yes? I am sorry. I suppose it must have seemed very hard to you. I have never been rich, but I can imagine that one does not like losing his money and becoming poor. Poor--Drake!"

"Then, you don't mind?" he inquired. "You don't shrink from the prospect of being a pauper's bride, Nell?"

She laughed.