"No! You are right there!" she cried her laughter subdued, glancing up almost defiantly into his face. "What--ever--does happen again? Did you not talk of the past being irrevocable, irrecoverable? It is! The present is bad enough, is it not? That I should be a hysterical fool like this--all because of a dream! At least I think my headache made me delirious all night. I am not good enough for you, dear. You must give up all idea of marrying me!"
She gazed tenderly at him with those dark eyes soft with the tears brought by that hysterical outburst.
"Oh, yes, of course!" he ironically said. "I am to give up all chance of happiness because you are not one of those Amazons I so cordially detest! Come, darling--I can see that London life is utterly and entirely disagreeing with you!" He seated himself on a sofa and drew her gently down beside him. "That fact reconciles me to taking you away, do you know--so it is the silver lining to the only cloud that is troubling my horizon!"
"You did not like that plan of mine? I am--thankful!"
As she ejaculated this with evident truth, Vansittart stared at her.
"Not that, darling! I am ready to do anything----" he began, alarmed lest she had seized upon a loop-hole for escape. But she interrupted.
"I had a dream last night," she began, slowly, striving for self-possession--the very mention of that awful vision unnerved her. "You know--what is on my mind--that I helped to ruin the life of a friend by helping her to marry a bad man. Well! I dreamt--that she came--to awful--grief! And the dream was so vivid that I take it as a warning. I do not wish to carry out our plan, dearest. If you care to marry me, let us be married openly, before the world!"
"Do you really mean it?" He grasped her hands and kissed them. He gazed at her with a face beaming, transfigured with joy. "Thank God, you do! Oh, my darling, my darling--I would have married you anywhere, anyhow, I would even have kept our marriage secret till the crack of doom if you had wanted to--but I hated doing it. I hated stealing you like a thief, instead of marrying you proudly, honourably, glorying in it, before God and all his creatures! You have lifted such a weight from my heart that I hardly know where I am, or what I am about!"
CHAPTER XXII
For awhile, as Joan sat, her lover's arm around her, all about them so bright--the pretty boudoir, decked with dainty gifts of her uncle's and aunt's, gay with flowers and sunshine--she was infected by his radiant happiness. A faint hope stole timidly up in her crushed heart--a vague idea of "misadventure"--"the visitation of God"--as the real cause of Victor Mercier's death, she only the unhappy instrument. The idea reigned--it was the melody to the accompaniment of his joyous talk.