"You must have liked Mrs. Ransome very much you are so faithful in your
remembrance of her."

I never presumed again to attack any of his foibles. He gave me first
a hard look, then an indulgent one, and finally managed to say, after a
moment of quiet hesitation:

"You allude to my custom of setting two chairs at the table to which
they may return at any minute? Miss Hunter, what I do in the loneliness
of that great house is not worth the gossip of those who surround you."

Flushing till I wished my curls would fall down and hide my cheeks,
I tried to stammer out some apology. But he drove it back with a
passionate word:

"Delight, idol of my heart, come and see what a lonely place that old
house is. Come and live in that house--at least for a little time, till
I can arrange for you a brighter and a happier home--come and be my
wife."

It was sudden, it was all but unlooked-for, and like all his expressions
of feeling, frenzied rather than resolute. But it was a declaration that
met my most passionate longings, and in the elation it brought I forgot
for the moment the doubts it called up. Otherwise I had been a woman
rather than a girl, and this tale had never been written.

"You love me, Delight" (he was already pressing me in his arms), "you
love me or you would never have rushed so impetuously to warn me of my
danger that night. Make me the maddest, happiest man in all the world
by saying you will not wait; that you will not ask counsel of anybody
or anything but your affection, but marry me at once; marry me while my
heart yearns for you so deeply; marry me before I go away----"

"Go away?"

"Yes, I am going away. Mrs. Ransome and her daughter are coming back and
I am going away. Will you go with me?"

With what intensity he spoke, yet with what hardness. I quivered while
I listened, yet I made no move to withdraw from him. Had he asked me to
step with him from the housetop I should hardly have refused while his
heart throbbed so wildly against mine and his eyes lured me on with such
a promise of ecstasy.

"You will?" How peremptory he could be. "You will?" How triumphant,
also.

I hardly realized what I had done till I stood abashed before Mrs.
Vandyke, and told her I had engaged myself to marry Mr. Allison before
he went to Europe. Then it seemed I had done a very good thing. She
congratulated me heartily, and, seeing I had a certain fear of taking my
aunt into my confidence, promised to sit down and