“Hold, sir!” cried the musician. “This is indeed my wife.”
He ascended the mound, and stood shoulder to shoulder beside that injured lady. Chesterfield fell back, snorting, while Kate ran to him and clutched his arm. That touch, so desired, so unfamiliar, seemed to fall like balm on his passion.
Moll looked up, with a twinkle of dismal resignation, at the sad, adoring face above her.
“So you’ve found me at last, Jack,” she said, “and all my fun’s over, I suppose, for the present. Well-a-day!” and she heaved a great sigh. “How did you know me?”
“Know you!” he exclaimed; and O, the aching tragedy, to him, implied in those two words! “Was not your voice enough, child, when you cried ‘Brava!’ There is none other like it in all the world. I followed it—when I could, and some instinct led me hither. And then and then—O, I wondered if you could be moved in the old way; and—and——”
“And I was moved, Jack; I had to sing when you made me. Lud, if you could only be always the angel your playing makes you! But”—she heaved her shoulders pettishly—“well, I must come back to be your wife again, I suppose.”
“Will you, Molly?” Poor wretch—the rapture and the marvel!
“O yes!” she said indifferently. “Well, what have you been doing with yourself all this while?”
“Playing for bread,” he answered. “I took another name—Bannister—my mother’s; and I think it blessed me. I have been making a reputation and a fortune, Molly.”
“A fortune!” cried the lady, opening her eyes. “Then I’ll come with you, sure. La, now! what must all these folks think of us, making love in public?”