"During our entire acquaintance," Dorris said finally, coming over to her, "you have said or done nothing which did not meet my approbation, and cause me to love you more and more. You did not force yourself to do these things; they were natural, and that was the reason I told you to keep away from me, for I saw that our acquaintance was becoming dangerous; why, I have offered to tell you before. But what you have done this night pleases me most of all. I have been praying that you would do it for months, though I did not believe you would, and, much as I loved you, I intended going away in the morning for your good. I was afraid to ask you to share my life, fearing you would accept, for I am a coward when you are in danger; but now that you have offered to do it, and relieved me of the fear I had of enticing you into it, I am happier than I can express."
Annie Benton's face brightened, and she put her hands in his.
"Please say that my face is not cold and passionless," she said. "Once you told me that when we were out on the hills, and it has pained me ever since. Say that there is hot blood and passion in my veins now."
"When I said that," he answered, "I was provoked because you had so much control. I had none at all, and declared my passion within a few weeks after I knew you, but when I did it, you only looked at me in meek surprise. But I understand it all now, and I want to say that although you may regard what you have done to-night as an impropriety, it is the surest road to my heart. If it is depravity, I will make you proud of depravity, for I will be so good to you in the future that you will bless the day you lost your womanly control. The fact that you have trusted me completely caused me to resolve to make you a happy woman, and I believe I can do it. I love you because you have blood in your veins instead of water, and I will make you a queen. I am more of a man than you give me credit for; I am not the gloomy misanthrope you take me to be, for you have rescued me from that, and I will make the people of Davy's Bend say that Annie Benton was wiser than the best of them!"
He struck the table a resounding blow with his fist, and had the enemies of the man been able to look at his face then, they would have been afraid of him.
"May I sit on your knee, and put my arms around your neck while you talk?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered, picking her up with the ease of a giant, and kissing her on the cheek. "You may ride on my back all your life if you will only remain with me. I have never felt like a man until this moment, and those who have fault to find with my course had better keep out of the way. There is a reason why you and I should not be married—as we will be before the sun shows itself again, for I intend to send for the minister to come to the church when I am through telling you how much I love you, and you shall play our wedding march while I pump the organ—but I am in the right. I have endured misery long enough to accommodate others; let them expect it no longer! And now that you know what I intend to do, listen while I tell you who I am, where I came from, and why I forced you to your present novel position."
"I prefer not to hear it," the girl said, without looking up. "I did not know you before you came to Davy's Bend: I am not concerned in your history beyond that time, and as a mark of confidence in you I shall reserve the telling of it until our married life has been tested: until I am so useful to you (as I am certain you will be to me) that, no difference what your secret is, we will consider it a blessing for bringing us together. But for the disagreeable part of your life we would never have met; we should think of that."
"Another time, then, or never, as you prefer," he replied. "I would have told you long ago, had you encouraged me to. Anyway, it is a story of devotion to others, and of principle practised with the hatred and contempt and cowardly timidity which should only characterize villains, and villainous actions; of principle carried to such an extent as to become a wrong; but from this hour I shall act from a right motive, in which my heart sympathizes; which affords me a return for effort, and which will aid in making me a better man. I shall live to accommodate myself henceforth, instead of as a favor to others. But what will the people say of our strange marriage?"
"I fear it is a sad depravity," the girl answered, "but I don't care."