At last he spoke, interrupting her brooding over his roses.
"You are running away from me!" he charged.
"Well, and what if I am?" She looked at him with a loving defiance in her
eyes.
"Don't you know I love you?" he asked, sitting down beside her and talking
low and almost fiercely. "Don't you know I've been torn away from you, or
you from me, twice before now, and that I cannot stand it any more? Say,
don't you know it? Answer, please," The demand was kind, but peremptory.
"I was afraid so," she murmured with drooping eyes, and cheeks from which
all color had fled.
"Well, why do you do it? Why did you run away? Don't you care for me? Tell
me that. If you can't ever love me, you are excusable; but I must know it
all now."
"Yes, I care as much as you," she faltered, "but----"
"But what?" sharply.
"But you are going to be married this week," she said in desperation,
raising her miserable eyes to his.
He looked at her in astonishment.
"Am I?" said he. "Well, that's news to me; but it's the best news I've
heard in a long time. When does the ceremony come off? I wish it was this
morning. Make it this morning, will you? Let's stop this blessed old train
and go back to the Doctor. He'll fix it so we can't ever run away from
each other again. Elizabeth, look at me!"
But Elizabeth hid her eyes now. They were full of tears.
"But the lady--" she gasped out, struggling with the sobs. She was so
weary, and the thought of what he had suggested was so precious.
"What lady? There is no lady but you, Elizabeth, and never has been.
Haven't you known that for a long time? I have. That was all a
hallucination of my foolish brain. I had to go out on the plains to get
rid of it, but I left it there forever. She was nothing to me after I saw
you."
"But--but people said--and it was in the paper, I saw it. You cannot
desert her now; it would be dishonorable."
"Thunder!" ejaculated the distracted young man. "In the paper! What lady?"
"Why, Miss Loring! Geraldine Loring. I saw that the preparations were all
made for her wedding, and I was told she was to marry you."
In sheer relief he began to laugh.
At last he stopped, as the old hurt look spread over her face.
"Excuse me, dear," he said gently, "There was a little acquaintance
between Miss Loring and myself. It only amounted to a flirtation on her
part, one of many. It was a great distress to my mother, and I went out
West, as you know, to get away from her. I knew she would only bring me
unhappiness, and she was not willing to give up some of her ways that were
impossible. I am glad and thankful that God saved me from her. I believe
she is going to marry a distant relative of mine by the name of Benedict,
but I thank the kind Father that I am not going to marry her. There is
only one woman in the whole wide world that I am willing to marry, or ever
will be; and she is sitting beside me now."