"It is true that now I am his only living son. Late last autumn Lord Veron, his wife and two sons, with my next brother, Archibald, were out for an afternoon's pleasure in a sailboat when there came up an awful blow and a sudden dash of rain. They were about in the middle of the lake. The wind twisted them around, the mast snapped, they found afterward that it was not seaworthy. There was no help at hand. They battled for awhile, then the boat turned over. Lady Veron never rose, the others swam for some time, but Archibald was the only one who came in to shore and he was so spent that he died two days later. I wonder the awful blow did not kill poor father. He was ill for a long while. My wife went to him then and took the child and had sufficient proof to establish the fact of the marriage, and her aunt had always been a foster mother to the boy. There must be some curious fascination about her, though I do not wonder father felt drawn to his only remaining son. Archibald's two children are girls and so are not in the entail. Hurst Abbey would go to some distant cousins. And she offered to come to America and find me. She has succeeded," he ended bitterly.
There was a long pause. He raised his head, but her face was turned away. Did she really care for him? She was taking it all so calmly.
"You will go," she said presently.
"Oh, how can I leave you? For now I know what real love is like. And this is a new country. I have begun a new life, Daffodil——"
"But I cannot be your wife, you see that. Would you give up your father's love, the position awaiting you for a tie that could never be sanctified? You must return."
"There is my son, you know. I shall not matter so much to them. It shall be as you say, my darling. And we need not stay here. It is a big and prospering country and I know now that I can make my way——"
It was not the tone of ardent desire. How she could tell she did not know, but the words dropped on her heart like a knell. Apart from the sacrifice he seemed ready to make for her there was the cruel fact that would mar her whole life, and an intangible knowledge that he would regret it.
"You must go." Her voice was firm.
Did she love so deeply? He expected passionate upbraiding and then despairing love, clinging tenderness. One moment he was wild to have the frank, innocent sweetness of their courtship; he was minded to take her in his arms and press bewildering kisses on the sweet mouth, the fair brow, the delicately tinted cheek, as if he could not give her up. Then Hurst Abbey rose before him, his father bowed with the weight of sorrow ready to welcome him, the fine position he could fill, and after all would the wife be such a drawback? There were many marriages without overwhelming love. If his father accepted her—and from his letter he seemed to unreservedly.
He rose from his kneeling posture and leaned over her. She looked in her quaint wedding dress and marble paleness as if it was death rather than life.