He was watching her as she spoke, and the little note of sorrow in her voice gave him a hope that she might relent at the last moment, and give him the promise he wanted so much. He put out his hand as if that would aid his appeal, and as his fingers closed over hers he said, "I am going away with a heavy heart, Telly, and when I can come back is hard to say. Will you not promise me that some time, no matter when, you will be my own good and true wife? Let me go away with that hope to comfort me while I work and save for a home for us both. Will you, Telly?"
But the plaintive face was turned away, perhaps to hide the tears. Then once more an arm stole around her waist, and as he drew her close, she whispered, "When I am no longer needed here, if you want me then I will come to you."
She was sobbing now, but her head was resting on his shoulder, and as he kissed her closed eyes and unresisting lips, a boat's sharp whistle broke the sacred spell.
"Go a little way back, my darling," he whispered, "until the boat is gone. I do not want any one to see you have been crying."
When her misty eyes could no longer see the boat that bore her heart away, she turned, and all the long, lonely way back love's tears lingered on her lashes.
CHAPTER XXXVII
AMID FALLING LEAVES
The mountains around Sandgate were aflame with the scarlet and gold of autumn before life seemed quite as usual to Alice Page. The summer idyll had passed, and though it left a scar on her heart, she had resolutely determined to put the sweet illusion out of her mind. "I was very foolish to let him see that I cared," she thought, "for it can never be, and by and by he will forget me, or if he does think of me, it will be to recall me as one of his summer girls who had a fit of silliness."