"I am glad you have come up, Mr. Cameron, for I want to do some shopping, and you can sit here with Miss Anderson whilst I am away. I did not like leaving her alone, but now I can go. You will be all right with Mr. Cameron, Doris, and I will return presently," and before they could make any coherent reply, she had set off, walking briskly away from the sea-front.
Bernard gave one grateful look after her, then he quickly turned to Doris. "I may sit down," he said, "may I not? For I have much to say."
Doris bowed. She could not speak, for hope and happiness had come to her, which she was vainly endeavouring to resist. Bernard was there, she had him all to herself; might she not for one half-hour give herself up to the happy present before she was made miserable for life?
"Have you anything to say to me first?" asked Bernard, gently. She looked so frail that he determined to be very gentle with her, and he said to himself that he could not really believe that she was engaged to Norman Sinclair, unless she said it with her own lips.
Doris could not speak. She endeavoured to do so, but in vain. It did not seem to her to be right to say what she wanted to tell him, and yet she could not utter the words that duty demanded. Therefore she remained silent.
"I have given her a chance to speak of her engagement to Sinclair, and she has not availed herself of it; therefore I will not believe she is engaged to him," said Bernard to himself; and then one of his hands stole under Doris's fur cloak and clasped hers warmly, as he cried in low yet earnest tones, "My darling, I have brought good news. I have had a legacy left me in part payment of my lost money."
Doris uttered a cry of joy. "My father!" she exclaimed. "You have heard from him! He has sent you money! Oh, thank God! Where is father? Tell me quickly! And did he mention mother?" She spoke rapidly, in intense eagerness.
Bernard was grieved to disappoint her; still, the truth had to be told, so he said quickly, "The money was not from your father. Mr. Hamilton, his co-trustee, has died and left me five thousand pounds in his will, he said, as some compensation for my lost money. Immediately I knew it I came to claim you, my dearest!" He drew the shrinking girl a little nearer. "I always said," he continued--"I always said that you and no other woman in the world should be my wife."
"I cannot! Oh, I cannot!" The words were only just audible, but reached Bernard's ears at length.
"Cannot!" He looked at her with pained surprise. Being very sanguine and also very young, he had already, in the last few minutes, almost forgotten the unwelcome news of her having become engaged to Norman Sinclair, which he had heard in London, and which had hurried him to Hastings. "Cannot!" he repeated. "But you must, and you shall! I have been too poor and too ill to claim you for some time. Now, however, that that money has come to me, I have immediately hastened here, in order to claim the fulfilment of your promise made to me upon the hill at Askern Spa. Don't trifle with me, Doris," he added, with a little choke in his manly voice. "I have been through so very much that I cannot bear it."