They had now come to a little gate, of which John Ball kept a key, and which led into the grounds belonging to the Cedars. The grounds were rather large, and the path through them extended for half a mile, but the land was let off to a grazier. When inside the wall, however, they were private; and Mr Ball, as soon as he had locked the gate behind him, stopped her in the dark path, and took both her hands in his. The gloom of the evening had now come round them, and the thick trees which formed the belt of the place, joined to the high wall, excluded from them nearly all what light remained.
"And now," said he, "I will tell you my plan."
"What plan?" said she; but her voice was very low.
"I proposed it once before, but you would not have it then."
When she heard this, she at once drew both her hands from him, and stood before him in an agony of doubt. Even in the gloom, the trees were going round her, and everything, even her thoughts, were obscure and misty.
"Margaret," said he, "you shall be my wife, and the mother of my children, and I will love you as I loved Rachel before. I loved you when I asked you at Christmas, but I did not love you then as I love you now."
She still stood before him, but answered him not a word. How often since the tidings of her loss had reached her had the idea of such a meeting as this come before her! how often had she seemed to listen to such words as those he now spoke to her! Not that she had expected it, or hoped for it, or even thought of it as being in truth possible; but her imagination had been at work, during the long hours of the night, and the romance of the thing had filled her mind, and the poetry of it had been beautiful to her. She had known—she had told herself that she knew—that no man would so sacrifice himself; certainly no such man as John Ball, with all his children and his weary love of money! But now the poetry had come to be fact, and the romance had turned itself into reality, and the picture formed by her imagination had become a living truth. The very words of which she had dreamed had been spoken to her.
"Shall it be so, my dear?" he said, again taking one of her hands. "You want to be a nurse; will you be my nurse? Nay; I will not ask, but it shall be so. They say that the lovers who demand are ever the most successful. I make my demand. Tell me, Margaret, will you obey me?"
He had walked on now, but in order that his time might be sufficient, he led her away from the house. She was following him, hardly knowing whither she was going.
"Susanna," said he, "shall come and live with the others; one more will make no difference."