A sudden access of self-consciousness seized on Gipsy; she blushed to her fingertips, and only anxious to hide the tears she could not check, she hurried away, round to the back of the inn, into a sort of orchard, where grew peach and nectarine trees, apples and pears already showing buds, and where the ground was covered with jonquils and crocuses, while beyond was the rocky precipice, and, far off, the snowy peaks that still made Gipsy shudder. Unconscious of the strain she had been enduring, she was terrified at the violence of her own emotion, for Gipsy was not a girl who was given to gusts of feeling. Probably the air and the solitude were her best remedies, for she soon began to recover herself, and sat up among the jonquils. Oh, how thankful she was that the danger was over, and the bright, kindly Cheriton spared from such a terrible sorrow! But was it for Cheriton’s sake that these last two days had been like a frightful dream, that her very existence seemed to have been staked on news of the lost ones? No one—no one could help such feelings. Miss Weston had cried about it, and her father had never been able to touch a pencil. But that foolish Mariquita! Here Gipsy sprang to her feet with a start, for close at her side stood Jack. At sight of him, strong and ruddy and safe, her feeling overpowered her consciousness of it, and she said, earnestly,—
“Oh, I am so thankful you are safe! It was so dreadful!”
“And it was not dreadful at all in reality, only tiresome and absurd,” said Jack.
“It was very dreadful here,” said Gipsy, in a low voice, with fresh tears springing.
“Oh, if you felt so!” cried Jack ardently; “I wish it could happen to me twenty times over!”
“Oh, never again!” she murmured; and then Jack, suddenly and impetuously,—
“But I am glad it happened, for I found out up in that dirty hole how I felt. There was never any one like you. I—I—could you ever get to think of me? Oh, Gipsy, I mean it. I love you!” cried the boy, his stern, thoughtful face radiant with eagerness, as he seized her hand.
“Oh, no—you don’t!” stammered Gipsy, not knowing what she said.
“I do!” cried Jack desperately. “I never was a fellow that did not know his own mind. Of course I know I’m young yet; but I only want to look forward. I shall work and get on, and—and up there at school and at Oakby I never thought there was any one like you. I disliked girls. But now—oh, Gipsy, won’t you begin at the very beginning with me, and let us live our lives together?”
Boy as he was, there was a strength of intention in Jack’s earnest tones that carried conviction. Perhaps the mutual attraction might have remained hidden for long, or even have passed away, but for the sudden and intense excitement that had brought it to the surface.