“Well, go on, I would not commence a sentence I was afraid to finish if I were you!”
“Well, that it was my only fault—there!”
“And so it was; and as you are cured now of course you are perfect.”
A silence. At length she said:
“Were you really going away to-morrow, Regy?”
“Yes, indeed I was. I have been lingering on here from day to day, hoping for one little word, just one, and it did not come. I would have gone back into the world a hard, embittered, cynical man. You smile, you think I am that already?”
“Tell me, Regy, will you be the very same Regy I knew of old, and will the rude, cold, stern guardian I have met lately, and—I tell you in confidence that I am a little afraid of—will he go?”
“He will,” replied her husband, with quiet decision. “He will take his departure along with the haughty young lady with whom he gets on so well. Are you sorry? Are you sorry to lose your guardian and find your husband?”
“Sorry!” she repeated, taking the flower out of his button-hole with the calmest air of rightful appropriation. “Do I look sorry? By-the-way, for the third time of asking, you may as well give me my wedding-ring”—fastening the flower in the front of her dress, and holding out a small white palm. “How glad I shall be to see it again,” she exclaimed, as she eagerly watched him disengaging it from his chain.
“Here it is,” handing it to her; “it is a travelled ring.”