clasping her hand with a restrained eagerness very impressive--"do not think I would willingly have caused you the slightest uneasiness from any petty idea of standing on my dignity; but, indeed, I was puzzled what to do, and then believing, as I did, that you must have been informed of Donald's death and the breaking up of Sir Peter's establishment, I concluded that you had changed your plans--your views--your--oh, I could not write to you! Do you not see I could not?"

"I can only repeat that two days ago I did not know of that poor boy's death. And, but for a few words in a letter from Moncrief, I should have started for Monkscleugh to keep the tryst. Now, Ella, are you glad to see me? do you believe me?"--as he spoke Wilton took both her hands, and looked eagerly into the eyes so frankly, but gravely, raised to his.

"I do believe you," said Ella, trying to speak steadily, and striving to hold back the tears that would well up, to suppress the wild throbbing of the heart which visibly heaved her bosom, to be calm, and mistress of herself in this crisis; but it was more than even her brave spirit could accomplish; the sudden change from darkness to light, from isolation to companionship, was too overwhelming; and yet she would not show the shattered condition of her forces. "I am glad to see you"--her lip quivered, great unshed tears, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over, hung sparkling on her long lashes as she spoke; and Wilton, gazing at the sweet face and slight, graceful figure, felt in his inmost soul the pathos of her controlled emotion.

"By Heaven, Ella! you are not indifferent to me," he exclaimed. Drawing her to him, he raised her hands to clasp his neck; and, folding his arms round her, pressed her pa.s.sionately to his heart. "My love, my life! why do you distrust me? Give me your heart! give me yourself. Are you ready to fulfil your more than half promise? I have kept the tryst. I have submitted to the test you have imposed; and now, what further barrier is there between me and happiness? Do you love me, Ella? Will you love me?"

She did not attempt to move. She leaned against him, silently, trembling very much; at length she sighed deeply.

"If you are quite sure of yourself," she almost whispered, "and not afraid of linking yourself with so isolated a creature as I am, I am ready to keep my word, as you have kept yours!"

"And you love me?" asked Wilton, bending over her, hungering for her a.s.surance.

She extricated herself gently from him, still leaving her hand in his.

"I will love you," she replied, looking away, and speaking thoughtfully.

Then, suddenly turning, and meeting his eyes with a grand frankness, "I _do_ love you," she said, in her sweet, firm tones; "and I think you deserve my love! If you do not, out with love and life, and everything!

I shall never believe more."

She pressed her hands over her eyes, and for a moment Wilton's pa.s.sionate longing to cover her mouth, her cheek, her brow, with kisses, was checked by the earnestness, the solemnity of her words; it was but a moment, the next she was in his arms, his lips clinging to hers as though he could never drink enough of their sweetness.

"And how did you find me?" asked Ella, when at last she managed to withdraw from his embrace, and began to gather her drawing materials together as a diversion from the strange, sweet embarra.s.sment of the new relations existing between them.

Wilton replied by recapitulating the search he had made, up to the miserable night before.

"When I arrived at Gothic Villa this morning," he went on, "I was considerably before the time of the second delivery; but at last I met the postman, and explained myself to him. 'Gothic Villa, Kershaw,' he repeated. 'Now that's curious. Not ten minutes ago I met a young lady what used to be at Gothic Villa, and she wanted to give me her new address, but I told her she must leave it at the district office.' You may guess the questions I put, and how I gathered that the young lady was yourself. He had a confused idea you said your abode was in Belinda Terrace, Notting Hill, and I have been for nearly the last three hours endeavoring to discover it. Finding there was no such place as Belinda Terrace, I tried my luck in Melina Crescent, and, after knocking and ringing at eleven doors, found the right one at last!"

"Then had I walked down the street, instead of meeting the postman at the top of it, I should have met you," said Ella, pausing in her occupation, with her design in her hand.

"Yes; and saved me three hours of torture," exclaimed Wilton. "What have you there? This is a very charming design; quite your own?"

"Yes, quite. Some days ago I took a much smaller one to a shop in ---- Street, and the man there gave me two pounds and two shillings for it.

Then he asked me to bring him something else, larger and richer, so I have been trying to sketch something better."

"My own darling," said Wilton, taking it from her; "this sort of thing is over now. No more work for you."

"Why not?" she returned. "You say, dear friend, that you are not rich.

If I am really to be your comrade through life, why may I not earn some money for us both? Life without work must be very dull."

"When you are my wife, you will see such things are impossible," said Wilton, laying aside the sketch, and drawing her to his side on a little, hard, horsehair, lodging-house sofa. "I have so much to say, so much to urge on you, I hardly know where to begin."

Whereupon he plunged into a rapid statement of his plans, his hopes, his strong conviction that, calmly and dispa.s.sionately considered, her position and his own rendered an immediate marriage absolutely and imperatively necessary. She had no one to consult, nor any protector to rely upon save himself, and the sooner he had a legal claim to be her protector the better. As to himself, no one had a right to interfere with him; nevertheless, there was an old man, a relative, who might make himself disagreeable if he had time. After marriage, all objections, interference, or meddlings, would be useless.

"I have a favorite sister to whom I shall write at once," concluded Wilton, "but she is away in Canada. So, dearest, why should we submit to the discomfort of needless delay? I shall have a renewal of leave, but only for a couple of months, part of which must be spent in effecting an exchange into some regiment in India, or going there. You see there will be little left for the honeymoon. What do you say to this day week?"

Wilton felt the hand he held suddenly tighten on his with a quick, startled pressure.

"Yes," he went on; "there is no possible objection. You have been at least three weeks in this parish, which is, I believe, the legal requirement. There is, then, no impediment; and, though it seems very like urging you to take a leap in the dark, you must either trust me altogether or throw me over. We are too peculiarly situated to perform the cold-blooded ceremony of cultivating each other's acquaintance; we must do that, as I believe all people really do, after rather than before marriage. Besides, I am so desperately afraid of your melting away out of my grasp, as you had nearly done just now, that I am determined not to lose my hold."

"Listen to me," said Ella, drawing away her hand and pressing it to her brow. "You mentioned a relative to whom your marriage might be painful.

Do you owe this old man love and respect? I think, if you do, it is hard to those who feel they ought to be considered to find an utter stranger preferred."

"Lord St. George has not the shadow of a claim on my love or respect,"

returned Wilton, rising and pacing to and fro; "and if he had it would not influence me. Now that you have really consented to be my wife, nothing save death shall come between us."

There was in his voice, and look, and gesture, such fire and resolution that a sudden sense of being in the presence of something stronger than herself thrilled Ella with a strange fear and pleasure. She closed her eyes, and her hands, that had clasped each other tightly, relaxed as she felt her life had pa.s.sed from her own keeping into another's. Wilton, who had paused opposite her, saw how deeply she was moved.

"Look at me, Ella!" he exclaimed, taking her hands in his--"look at me!

You are too n.o.bly frank to hesitate as to a day sooner or later in the fulfilment of your promise."

She turned to him; and, with a wistful, earnest look straight into his eyes, said, in a low, firm voice:

"So be it! I will keep my word when and where you like."

Two days after, Major Moncrief, who had only seen Wilton once for a few minutes in the interim, awaited him by appointment at Morley's, where they they were to dine.

"Why, what the deuce are you so desperately busy about?" asked the major, as Wilton hastily apologized for not having been ready to receive his friend.

"Oh, I have a hundred things in hand. I have had to 'interview' my lawyer, and then I have been with Box and Brushwood about exchanging into a regiment under orders for India--and--but the rest after dinner."

"Why, what are you up to now?" replied Moncrief, but not in the tone of a man that expects a direct reply.

Dinner pa.s.sed very agreeably, for Wilton was in brilliant spirits. Not for many a year had Moncrief see him so bright.

"I believe this is the same room we dined in the day you started for Monkscleugh, and had the smash?" observed Moncrief, as the waiter, having placed dessert on the table, left the friends together.

"It is," said Wilton, looking round. "That is rather curious; and I remember your saying, 'I must dree my weird.' Well, Moncrief, I have dreed it, and I asked you here to-day to tell you the history, and receive your blessing or malediction, as the case may be."

Setting down his gla.s.s of port untasted, the major stared at his friend with an air of dismay and bewilderment.

"Courage, man!" continued Wilton, laughing at his consternation; "I am not in debt--only in love, and going to be married on Thursday next."

"To be married! You--who could not oblige your pleasant relative, Lord St. George, because of your invincible objection to lose your liberty?"

"Well, the liberty is gone long ago; so my only plan is to surrender at discretion, or, rather, without discretion. You remember a young lady we met at Brosedale--the la.s.sie, in short, whom I picked out of the snow?"

"What! that pale-faced, dark-eyed little girl--young Fergusson's companion or drawing-mistress? Why, she was scarcely pretty."

"Just so. Well, I am going to marry her on Thursday. Will you come to the wedding?"

Wilton had poured out a b.u.mper of claret as he spoke, and, with a slight, defiant nod, drank it off.

"By ----!" exclaimed Moncrief, who did not generally use strong language; "I am astonished. When did you decide on this preposterous piece of foolery?"

"I put things in train last December, but the date was not decided till two days ago."

"Ha! I thought I smelt a rat just before I left Glenraven; but I never dreamed of anything so serious. You are the last man I should have accused of such idiotic weakness. Who is this girl?"

"I do not know."