"If you really wish me to be quiet," I said, "you can stop me very easily. Tell me you will be my wife when we return to New York. Only say 'yes' and I will not speak another word."
She leaned over the bed, pushing my hair back gently with her soft white hand.
"Only that one word, Marjorie; only that one! And then we will both be still."
"When—we return—to New York," she answered, slowly, with a pause between the syllables, "I have—something—of great importance to—tell you. If—after that—you persist in your question—I—I—"
"That is enough," was my joyful reply. "You will leave it to me? Dear girl, I ask no more. God bless and keep you!"
I fell asleep early that evening and did not waken once till the sun had risen. Then the medicine she had given me showed its efficacious power. I was quite able to rise and even to take my breakfast at the table in the sitting-room with her. Once started on the road to recovery each hour showed a rapid gain. In another day I was taken for a short drive. The next I remained dressed from morning till night, though I reclined part of the time on a sofa.
And I could think of nothing but returning to the United States. The sooner the better now, when the wish of my life was to be granted there.
Marjorie showed herself a woman of wonderful capacity in more ways than one. She arranged with the Colonial Bank officials to have a draft all ready for me to sign when I drove up one day for money, thus saving what must have proved a weary wait. She bought new steamer chairs, the others having been left carelessly on the Pretoria. She paid the hotel bill and made all arrangements for our departure, having taken pains to learn which steamer would take us away the soonest. We were to go on a Royal Mail boat, "the Don," (happy omen!) to Jamaica, being sure of plenty of American steamers from that point.
On the day we were to depart I was nearly as strong as ever. Bidding farewell with some regrets to all the guests I knew, to the proprietor, the manager, Miss Byno and the brown-eyed bicyclist, I entered the carriage with really a light heart.
I was going again on a voyage with Marjorie; going, though the route might be slightly circuitous, to a land where she and I were to be indissolubly united. Is it any wonder I was happy?