“And you will meet other and beautiful women, and will forget your Marie!” she said, still sobbing.
“No! darling little Marie! Will it give you pleasure if I tell you that I swear to be true to you—to wait until you have grown to womanhood? that I will marry no other woman living but you?” and he stroked her beautiful hair and raised her face to his.
“If you swear this, you do love me!” she cried through her tears; then, brightening up, she threw her arms about him, and murmured: “Though it will grieve me to the heart to see you leave me, yet your promise will ever tend to dull the sorrow of your absence, and will be a beacon light for me to look forward to. A few years, and you will come and claim me, will you not, Junius?” and as the words left her lips, she blushed and dropped her eyes from before his gaze.
Somehow, she had never before used his first name. It seemed to her that he was too far above her, too much older, for such a liberty on her part.
And how had their love ripened, these two of years so wide apart? Simply and easily enough. In one of his loving moods, Junius Cobb, in kissing her good-night, had said:
“Marie, I will wait until you grow up, and marry you!”
“Will you?” she had replied, laughing, yet earnestly. “Then, I accept you, Mr. Cobb, and will grow just as fast as I can.”
Very simple, and very easy.
“Marie, little darling,” and Cobb’s voice was sad and low, “to-night I go far away. To-night we must part; but my sacred promise I give you, my girl darling, that when I return, you shall be my wife, if living.”