"Dear!" How that word coming from her lips for the first time stirred him!

"Happier!" he cried. "Oh, my darling! my darling!"

A blush half of joy, half of shame, again suffused her cheeks, and she said, "For your sake, to make you happy, I would do all you willed; but still--still--I doubt very much--whether I should make you happier if I consented to be your wife."

"I have no doubt at all about it, my darling," he exclaimed; "but I don't want you to marry me, to please _me_ only;" then looking at her face he was satisfied on that point and said no more.

He seized her hand, and they walked on through the green woods hand in hand, now conversing in low tones, now in happy silence.

They acted as most true lovers do under like circ.u.mstances, and felt, as most true lovers do, that no others since the world began could have loved so well as they. It was all so strange to Mary; too sweet, too near Heaven to endure long, she fancied. It was the first real love-making that had pa.s.sed between these two. Never had their spirits been so near before; they understood each other now, and each confessed that they must for the future be all in all to each other, come what might, but Mary would make no promise to marry him yet.

He perceived that it was not mere maidenly coyness that prompted this refusal, and that there was some serious reason for it; but he was content, she loved him, loved him in a way that shut out all other possibilities of love for both.

"I will be your wife or no one's, Harry," she at last replied to his pa.s.sionate pleading, and they sealed the compact in a long delicious kiss.

"Mary!" he said, "I do not know why you will not promise to marry me by-and-bye, but I will not press you for your reasons now. There is plenty of time to do that, and I know you will give in at last. Oh, my sweet! it is enough, it is more than I deserve, to know that you love me, to know that you will not drive me from you, that I may often be with you. Do you remember how cruel you were in London, when you told me to go away from you for ever, when you forbade me ever to speak to you of love again?"

"Yes, but it is different now," she said gently.

"And you really love me?"

"Why do you ask me what you know so well?"

"And I may come and see you as often as I like?"

"I did not say that."

"But I may."

There came a pause, then she said, "Promise me something, Harry."

"I will promise anything you wish."

"I want you to promise me not to come here again until I write to you."

"How cruel!"

"No! I am not cruel, Harry, you do not understand; but I must think over all this, I do not see things clearly yet, I must think," she stopped in the middle of the sentence, and an expression of agony pa.s.sed over her face, as the memory of her secret came to her mind.

"Oh, Mary! don't you love me well enough to trust me yet?" he asked reproachfully.

"It is you who are cruel now. Oh, Harry, you know it is not that. You know how I should like you never to leave me at all, you know that, but...."

"I _am_ cruel! Tears in my poor little pet's eyes too, and I have brought them there by my brutality," and he stooped to kiss her eyelids.

"Harry! Harry! Ah, if you knew what makes me hesitate! If you knew and could help me! But there is no one that I can go to for advice--no one!"

There was a keen anguish in her voice as she uttered these words.

He seized her hands. "Mary, my love, cannot you come to _me_ for advice?"

"I cannot without betraying the secrets of others."

"Is it this secret then that prevents your marrying me?"

"Yes," she said sadly.

"You think that you ought not to marry me without revealing it to me, and yet you cannot reveal it; is that it?"

"Yes, Harry."

"Why, you silly little pet," and he kissed her, "is that all the difficulty? We can soon get out of that. Don't tell me the secret. I am not such an ogre that I wish to know all my little wife's secrets. Is it your idea that a wife is bound to tell her husband every single thing? I am afraid few wives take that view. Anyhow, I will relieve your conscience by ordering you not to tell me that particular secret. I shall be very angry--oh! I can be very angry, if you ever dare to let out a word of it." He spoke playfully and kissed her again. "Now, are you satisfied, pet?"

"But, oh! that is not all, Harry. Supposing this secret is one that I cannot reveal, and yet one which I ought to reveal, as it affects the happiness of many other people. Supposing that by saying a few words I could save much misery to hundreds. Oh! what can I do? What _am_ I to do? How can I live happily with this awful thing on my mind?"

She uttered these words in accents of the wildest misery. He looked puzzled and very grave. He suspected that some mad socialist scheme of Catherine King was at the bottom of this mystery, but he was, of course, far from having the faintest idea of the real nature of it.

"Mary," he said, "I have more than a suspicion that Mrs. King has admitted you into some wild Political Secret Society, that is destined to regenerate the world in some way or other. If that is your secret I think you can keep it to yourself with an easy conscience. These people talk a good deal of sedition, but have not the pluck to carry out their preaching. They will never do any harm, you will see."

"You do not know, you do not know," she said hurriedly and alarmed that she had allowed him to guess even so little as he had; "but I must not say more now. Do not talk about this now, Harry, please. I will think over what you have said. In a day or two I shall see things more clearly, and I will write to you."

"And say in your letter 'Come to me.' Will you promise that."

"When I write it will be to ask you to come to me, Harry."

"That will be delicious! to receive from you, your first love-letter, and with that sweet invitation in it, too. How anxiously I shall look for it each day!"

He gave her the nosegay he had gathered, and slowly they retraced their steps to the merry party under the great oak tree. Then the doctor had to leave them to catch his train to town, and he walked off with the proud step and the glad eye of a true man who has won his sweetheart.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE TAKING AWAY OF THE SHADOW.

When her lover had gone, a strong inclination came over Mary to be alone for a time, she felt so perplexed and yet so happy. Taking in her hand the nosegay of wild flowers he had gathered for her, she went off by herself for a stroll in the woods, to think quietly over all that had happened and that was to be. One moment the idea that she might some day call the man she loved so dearly by the sweet name of husband, made her heart beat quick with delight. The next moment her hope died out, and she shuddered as she thought of that secret of hers which must surely divide them for ever. How was it all to end? But, on the whole, she felt very happy. She could not feel miserable on this day. A great part of the shadow had already been cleared away. Possibly, but how she could not tell, the rest would go too--she even felt sure that it would be so soon.

She reached the river again, and sat down on a mossy bank by the side of it, and now the excitement of the day began to tell on her yet enfeebled brain.

Lulled by the slumberous hum of insects, the gentle rustling of the leaves overhead, and the dashing of the stream across its shingle bed below, a drowsiness, or rather a waking dream, stole over her senses--a delicious, weary calm full of changing visions.

It seemed to her as if the sky and hills and trees were further off from her, vaster, lovelier than of earth; and a music of birds was in the trees such as might have charmed some grove of the innocent Eden. It was as if the trance of him who has eaten of the magical Indian herb had fallen on her--a trance magnifying, glorifying all her surroundings. The warm breeze was as a lover's kisses on her cheek and neck, so lovingly it played around her; an intoxicating delight was in the scent of the flowers; and the air she breathed was as liquid joy. And it seemed to her as if she were quite alone in the midst of this beautiful Nature.

She forgot all about the picnic and the people that were not far from her, all about the great world beyond. She was a being alone, the solitary Eve of a lovely Eden--alone save for one G.o.d-like man who had just left her.

She felt the delight, the glory of the garden, and that was all; so, scarcely knowing what she did, she took off her shoes and stockings, and dipped her pretty feet and ankles in the stream as she sat by it, singing softly the while in a mellow, dreamy voice even such a chant as some lone Lorelei or sad, soul-less Undine might have sung by the sunny Rhine. Then she took up the primroses and hyacinths her lover had given her, and separated them; some she fastened in her straw hat, the rest she strewed in her lap.