"And you," she whispered, "are the man who told me, only a few hours ago, that you wanted me for your wife!"

"I do, my darling!" I replied, with all the fervor I could put into the words. "I mean no more than I say when I ask to touch your cheek with my lips, your hand even, the hem of your gown."

She was gone; and as I sat there I reflected for the second time that evening what an a.s.s I had been. Marjorie had taken what I thought a harmless request and turned it into an insult. I cursed anew the d.a.m.nable training I had had in the field of love-making. It had me as unfit to win the heart of a pure and virtuous maiden as a brigand.

The worst was, she had gone to her chamber with the thought still on her mind that I was a liar of the meanest stripe. After professing a pure love I had, at the first opportunity, she imagined, showed the emptiness of my pretence, the falseness of my heart.

Sleep fled this time from my eyes, and no wonder. I propped my head high with pillows and resigned myself to wakefulness and moody thoughts till daybreak.

As soon as it was light I took stationery from my trunk and wrote an impa.s.sioned letter to my beloved, that she might see, before we met again, how terribly she had misjudged me. I told her the story as it really was--my sudden awakening, the longing that possessed me for some recognition from the being to whom all my life's love had been pledged.

I detailed the sickness of heart with which I realized how woefully my object was misapprehended. I touched on the absence of sleep that followed my error, and in closing begged her to write me just a word to say that I was forgiven, before I underwent the agony of meeting her unjustly accusing eyes. This I signed, "Your husband that is to be--that must be--with all respect and love."

It was almost as great a shock as if she had refused to read my note when the maid whom I summoned to deliver it, brought me a tiny sheet of paper bearing these words:

"Of course you are forgiven, my dear boy. I understood it all a minute after I left you. Sorry you took it to heart. If you wish to please me do not allude to it when we meet."

From some remarks that I heard below stairs I gathered that Edgerly had left the house, taking his baggage with him, before the early breakfast was served. A little later I learned that he had gone to a town on the opposite side of the island where the capital is located. I therefore came to the conclusion that he had decided not to push his intention of mauling me at present. Probably, I reflected, he did not realize how easy a victim I was likely to be in the present condition of my health.

We pa.s.sed the rest of the time while at St. Croix in morning work, midday siestas, evening drives and after dinner talks. Marjorie succeeded in keeping the conversation away from the delicate ground of the former occasion, but she did not succeed in eliminating the subject from my mind. Knowing from the letter I had read at Eggert's, that she cared much for me, I was not to be dissuaded from my intention of taking her home, either as my actual or my promised bride. The security I felt gave me willingness to wait. What I needed now was to strengthen the affection she had admitted until it was too strong for her to resist longer.

No shadow came between us during the week that remained before the coming of the Pretoria, on which we were to embark for another voyage.

We heard the boat had arrived on the morning of the 8th of February, and would leave late in the evening. I engaged a carriage to drive us to a distant point, so that we might go on board too late to meet any of the Americans with whom the steamer was sure to be filled. That day was one of unalloyed happiness.

Alas! that so soon my troubles were to break out afresh!

I had arranged with the local agent to secure me the requisite berths and he brought the tickets to the hotel at night when we returned. There was only one unpleasant feature about them--he had not been able to secure a place for the lady very near me--but we had no right to expect anything else, and Marjorie seemed disposed to make the best of it.

At eleven o'clock we were rowed out with our baggage and shown to our rooms.

Reaching mine, I turned up the electric light and started as I saw the face of Mr. Wesson in that lower berth.

"The devil!" I could not help exclaiming, aloud.

It seemed to partially waken him, for he turned over and muttered something indistinguishable, immediately relapsing again into sound sleep.

I said to myself that this was decidedly too much. I would be d--d if I would sleep there. When I had donned my pajamas, therefore, I went up to the deck above and pa.s.sed the night on the cushions of the music room, of which I was the only tenant.

CHAPTER XVIII.

OUR NIGHT AT MARTINIQUE.

Of course I had to meet Wesson in the morning; and as I could a.s.sign no reason for the distrust which I felt, I had to choose between giving him the cut direct and putting on an air of coolness without a real affront.

I encountered him on deck, before I had been down to dress, as I went out to take a view of the island of St. Kitts. He murmured something about being glad to see me again, but did not attempt a prolonged conversation. He evidently had not yet ascertained that I was his roommate.

Slightly uneasy to have Miss May so far from me I went as soon as I was dressed to her door and knocked. She was awake and in response to an inquiry said she would be up to breakfast. Luckily she had been given a room alone, due perhaps to a small inducement I had sent in a note left with the agent the day before. As I stood outside I chafed at the restrictions she continually put upon me; and yet I knew very well I had no right to complain. What earthly business had I in the room of a young, unmarried woman, before she was out of bed? The fact that I had been in more than one under similar circ.u.mstances did not count in a case like this.

The scornful words of my darling came back to me--the expression she had used at St. Croix. I must put better control on my wild thoughts or I would yet do something she might regard as unpardonable.

The table to which we were a.s.signed in the salon had no especial interest. The other people had become acquainted from their nine days'

voyage together and clearly looked upon us as interlopers. For this I was not sorry. Beyond necessary requests to "pa.s.s" the b.u.t.ter or the ice, I had nothing to say to them nor they to me; while Miss May's mouth was sealed entirely to conversation.

The succeeding days would have been insufferably dull but for the presence of my idol, as I had been to all the islands on my voyage of three years previous. To show them to her with the confidence of an old traveller was in itself a charm not to be despised. We went ash.o.r.e together at St. Kitts, and drove extensively; took our turtle dinner at Antigua, where I was much grieved to hear that Mr. Fox, the American consul, with whom I had formerly been acquainted, had died shortly after my previous visit. He was one of the pleasantest men I ever met and an honor to the civil service. A new consul, bound to Guadaloupe, was on board, with his wife--a Chicago man with a French name and the unusual ability to speak the language of the place to which he was accredited.

He struck me as much better educated than the average consul and withal a good fellow. In his party, much of the time, were two charming young ladies from Alleghany City, whose father, a German, was taking a well earned vacation from his duties as cashier of a bank there. Had there been any place in my mind that was not filled with Marjorie, I should certainly have tried to become better acquainted with these girls.

I also made a smoking room acquaintance with three delightful fellows, a Mr. T----, from Indianapolis, a Mr. S----, from Greensburg, and a Mr.

H----, from Brockton, Ma.s.s. The first was an attorney; the second engaged in the theatrical business, and the third a license commissioner. I should be sorry to think I had seen either for the last time.

At Dominica I went ash.o.r.e very early and engaged two horses for a ride into the mountains, making arrangements with an individual who seemed (actually) to rejoice in the cognomen of "Mr. c.o.c.kroach." He announced himself to me as the owner of that t.i.tle with evident pride and when we came off after breakfast had ready two of as mean animals, judging by appearance, as could be imagined. They endured the long climb, however, remarkably well, and were as easy to sit as a rocking chair. Marjorie unbent herself more than usual when we were in the heart of the hills, with no one near, for the black boy who was supposed to follow us on foot had a way of cutting across the fields and keeping out of sight nearly all the time.

The island of Dominica is very beautiful and I remembered enjoying this ride greatly on my previous visit. The vegetation is thoroughly tropical. The excessive moisture caused by rains which occur daily through most of the year gives to everything a luxuriance not exceeded north of the equator, I believe. The mountain path by which we went is too narrow in most places to ride abreast, but wherever we could get side by side I managed to do so. At such times the sense of companionship was thrillingly delicious, and while I dared not risk offending by becoming too familiar, I managed to play the discreet lover and was very happy.

I thought I was certainly improving. There had been a time, not so very long before, when I would Have planted myself in the lady's way, and exacted tribute before letting her by, trusting to her forgiveness after the deed was done. I would have given much to have dared the same thing now, but the thought did not seriously enter my head. I was certainly growing better under my excellent teacher.

There was one point at which I had a jealous pang, so ridiculous that I think it only right to detail the occurrence. We went out of our way to view a sulphur pit, where the Evil One or some of his satellites have apparently secured an opening to the air from the very Bottomless Pit itself. The atmosphere is charged with fumes, while the deposit bubbles and froths in a way to strike terror into the heart of an infidel. To get a near view, one must be carried across a small stream by a couple of negroes, or--take off his shoes and stockings and wade. Miss May looked somewhat aghast at both propositions, and I allowed the boys to carry me over first, to show her how safe the process was. But, though it might be safe, it was clearly not graceful, for they handled a human being quite as if he were a sack, thinking their duty done if they got him across without dropping him in the brook.

She said, at first, that she believed she would rather wade and sat down to take off her boots. Then, when it came to the hosiery and her fingers had begun to wander toward the fastenings, she had another period of doubt, calling to me to know if there was really anything worth seeing.

Finally putting on her boots again, she directed the negroes how to make a sort of "cat's-cradle" chair and arrived safely in that manner.

It was then that I had my pang. For she put both her fair arms around the neck of the bearers to steady herself in transit.

"I shall insist on being one of your porteurs, on your return," I said, as she was placed on her feet. "If you are going to put your arms around the neck of any man in this island it must be myself."

She tried to laugh off the idea, a little nervously, saying she had more confidence in those experienced fellows on the slippery stones than she had in me. I persisted a little longer, till it became evident my expressions were not agreeable. In returning she managed to steady herself by merely touching the shoulders of her bearers, and brought back the smile to my face by calling my attention to the fact, with a comic elevation of her eyebrows. I helped her mount her horse and all the way from there she was kindness itself. On the whole the day was the most delightful I had pa.s.sed since leaving America.

She was to be my wife! This thought was uppermost in my mind. She must be my wife! I would think of nothing but that blissful culmination.

It was not the time now to press for an affirmative answer. I must make myself more and more agreeable, more indispensable to her. When the hour came that she was about to leave me--when the alternative presented itself to her mind of going back to her unpleasant struggle for bread or becoming the consort of a man she had admitted was not distasteful to her--I had no fear of the result.

The next stop after Dominica is Martinique and here I intended to make a stay of a month at least. My tickets were only purchased as far as this point. Our baggage was taken ash.o.r.e and, as far as appeared, we had bidden a permanent farewell to the good ship Pretoria.

Again, however, my plans were to be altered.

The Hotel des Bains at St. Pierre, is not by any means a first-cla.s.s house, but there is something quaint about it that to me has a certain charm. The meals are served in the French style and not at all bad. The beds are immense affairs, and I never yet saw a bed that was too big. In the centre of what might be called the patio, so Spanish is the architecture of the building, is a fish-pond, giving an air of coolness to the entire place.

The patois of the servants is pleasing to my ear. I entered the house in high spirits, remembering a delightful visit there in the former time.

The mulatto proprietor recognized me, as did his slightly lighter colored wife, presiding over her duties as only a woman of French extraction can.

"A large room with two beds, I presume?" asked the proprietor, in French, bowing affably to Miss May.

"He asks if we wish a large room with two beds," I said translating his words into English, smilingly, but she evidently did not consider the joke worth laughing at. So I said that we wished two rooms, as near together as possible.

Madame looked up. She was searching, evidently, for the wedding ring that was absent from Marjorie's finger, to explain my decision. A servant was called to attend to us and presently we were established in very comfortable quarters.

As I wanted Miss May to see the island as soon as possible, a carriage was summoned immediately, in which we took the road to Fort de France, where we viewed the statue of the Empress Josephine, erected to commemorate the fact that she was born in that vicinity. We had a nice lunch at a hotel there and took rooms to secure the siesta to which we had both grown accustomed. Then we drove back to St. Pierre, and arrived at the Hotel des Bains in season for dinner.