“Let me see”—turning it to the moonlight and scrutinising it closely—“if it is my own. Yes, there is the ‘R. A.’ entwined. Now please to put it on.”
“Alice,” he said, taking her little ring-less hand in his and slipping it on her finger, “remember, you are not to remove it again.”
“I never will, you may be very sure, as long as I live, and when I die it shall be buried with me. See, it is quite too big for me now,” holding up her hand.
“It is indeed,” he reluctantly owned to himself, as he looked at the fragile, almost transparent fingers held up for his inspection. An agonising thought flitted through his brain and turned his heart, as it were, to ice. “Had he gained her but to lose her after all?”
“Why do you shiver?” cried Alice gaily. “Why do you look so odd—you are not ill, are you?”
“Ill? Not I!” recovering himself with an effort. “It is probably your friend the goose walking over my grave.”
“Don’t talk of graves,” she said with a shudder, drawing nearer to him involuntarily, and laying her hand on his shoulder. “You don’t know,” she added in a low voice, “what a good wife I am going to be. You have given me back my wedding-ring, and in return I promise solemnly to be truthful, loving, and obedient as long as I live. Nothing but death can ever come between us now,” she added tremulously, as, stealing her arm round his neck, she gave him the tenderest and shyest of kisses.
“You little witch!” he exclaimed, returning it with interest. “Do you know that that is almost the first kiss you have ever given me of your own accord, Lady Fairfax? What a change a few hours can make in one’s life! This morning, mine seemed so empty, so cheerless; just what it has been for the last three years. I had no one to look after, or care about much, except myself, and I am not very fond of myself; sometimes, I know all my faults quite as well, nay, far better than you do.”
“What are they?” she asked with a smile. “Let us compare notes.”
“I am determined to the verge of obstinacy, and beyond it. Proud to a degree little short of insanity. Overbearing, supercilious, tenacious, I would die sooner than yield, once I have made up my mind that I am in the right. If I had been less blinded by my pride, I would have written to you when Maurice was born, and saved us both two long miserable years. How can I ever make amends to you, my darling? How can I ever overtake these years I have left you alone?”