"I don't know," I whisper, "only I do not want to be married, or have a lover, or anything."
Marmaduke lays his cheek very gently against mine, and for a long time there is silence between us. After awhile my sobs cease, and he once more breaks the silence by saying:—-
"You will marry me, Phyllis?" and I answer, "Yes," very quietly, somehow feeling as if that kiss had sealed my fate, and put it out of my power to answer "No."
"Then look at me," says Marmaduke, tenderly. "Will you not let me see my dear wife's face?"
I raise a face flushed and tear-stained and glance at him shyly for a moment. Evidently its dimmed appearance makes no difference to him, as there is unmistakable rapture and triumph in his gaze as he regards it. I hide it again with a sigh, though now the Rubicon being actually passed, I feel a sense of rest I had not known before.
"Who is to tell them at home?" I ask presently.
"I will. Shall I go back with you now and tell them at once?"
"No, no," I cry, hastily, shrinking from the contemplation of the scene that will inevitably follow his announcement. "It is too late now. To-morrow—about four o'clock—you can come and get it over. And, Mr. Carrington, will, will you please be sure to tell them I knew nothing of it—never suspected, I mean, that you cared for me?"
"That I loved you? It would be a pity to suppress so evident a fact. Though how you could have been so blind, my pet, puzzles me. Well, then, to-morrow let it be. And now I will walk home with you, lest any hobgoblin, jealous of my joy should spirit you away from me."
Together and rather silently we go through the wood and out into the road beyond. I am conscious that every now and then Marmaduke's eyes seek my face and dwell there with a smile in them that betrays his extreme and utter satisfaction. As for me, I am neither glad nor sorry, nor anything, but rather fearful of the consequence when my engagement shall be made public in the home circle. As yet my marriage is a thing so faint, so far away in the dim distance, that it causes me little or no annoyance.