"I should loathe it!" he said strongly. "And what about Australia?"
"Anywhere with you—even if it is to the South Pole!"
Dalton kissed her to express his delight in her thoroughness. "How glad I shall be when I have you all to myself!—I shall spend every day of my life in proving to you how much I value your love, and you shall give this poor devil a chance to take up his life again. Honey!—sometimes I am sleepless with fears. It seems to me too good to be true. I am overcome with dread lest I should never carry it through! Something will be sure to happen to stop it. If so, I am done for! It will be the end of me!" He looked as if haunted with forebodings of evil.
Honor enfolded him in her embrace. Her tender arms clung about his neck and she kissed him tenderly in her desire to bring him comfort. "Why should anything happen to interfere? God knows how much we care, and He will be merciful." She fancied he alluded to sudden death.
"Ah! yes. Your God to whom you pray for safety every night of your life, may see fit to save you from such as I. I'm not good enough to take you, Honey; that's straight."
"You shall not say that," she protested laying her soft palm across his mouth. "Who is good in this world? Not I, by any means! So we are a pair in need of protection, and are both determined to begin a new life together in gratitude for the Divine Countenance."
Dalton suppressed a sound that was almost a sob while he defiantly blinked away a tear. "Sweet little Puritan!—" He covered her hand with kisses. "But it will be a terrible day for me when that martinet of a conscience sits in judgment on my sins. It makes me wish with all my heart that I may be dead before then! I'd risk damnation to——"
"Oh, hush!—--"
"To have you mine, anyway. Does that shock you? It's the truth," and Honor was pained and greatly puzzled.
But he was not often in such a strange frame of mind. There were times when he was a different man, almost boyish in his merriment, and full of a determined optimism. He would build castles in the air for them both to live in, and make her laugh just for the sake of admiring her beautiful teeth.