"I promise."
He again kissed her hand, like a knight of the olden time.
At the last turn of the road from which he was visible she waved her handkerchief, then sought her room and burst into a passion of tears.
"Oh," she sobbed, "as I now feel I could not refuse him anything.
I may never see him again, and he has been so kind and generous!"
The poor girl was indeed morbid from excitement and anxiety. Her pale face began to give evidence of the strain which the times imposed on her in common with all those whose hearts had much at stake in the conflict.
In vain her mother remonstrated with her, and told her that she was "meeting trouble half-way." Once the sagacious lady had ventured to suggest that much uncertainty might be taken out of the future by giving more encouragement to Mr. Merwyn. "I am told that he is almost a millionnaire in his own right," she said.
"What is he in his own heart and soul?" had been the girl's indignant answer. "Don't speak to me in that way again, mamma."
Meanwhile Merwyn was a close observer of all that was taking place, and was coming to what he regarded as an heroic resolution. Except as circumstances evoked an outburst of passion, he yielded to habit, and coolly kept his eye on the main chances of his life, and these meant what he craved most.
Two influences had been at work upon his mind during the summer. One resulted from his independent possession of large property. He had readily comprehended the hints thrown out by his lawyer that, if he remained in New York, the times gave opportunity for a rapid increase in his property, and the thought of achieving large wealth for himself, as his father had done before him, was growing in attractiveness. His indolent nature began to respond to vital American life, and he asked himself whether fortune-making in his own land did not promise more than fortune-seeking among English heiresses; moreover, he saw that his mother's devotion to the South increased daily, and that feeling at the North was running higher and becoming more and more sharply defined. As a business man in New York his property would be safe beyond a doubt, but if he were absent and affiliating with those known to be hostile to the North, dangerous complications might arise.
Almost unconsciously to himself at first the second influence was gaining daily in power. As he became convinced that Marian was not an ordinary girl, ready for a summer flirtation with a wealthy stranger, he began to give her more serious thought, to study her character, and acknowledge to himself her superiority. With every interview the spell of her fascination grew stronger, until at last he reached the conclusion which he regarded as magnanimous indeed. Waiving all questions of rank and wealth on his part he would become a downright suitor to this fair countrywoman. It did not occur to him that he had arrived at his benign mood by asking himself the question, "Why should I not please myself?" and by the oft-recurring thought: "If I marry rank and wealth abroad the lady may eventually remind me of her condescension. If I win great wealth here and lift this girl to my position she will ever be devoted and subservient and I be my own master. I prefer to marry a girl that pleases me in her own personality, one who has brains as well as beauty. When these military enthusiasts have disappeared below the Southern horizon, and time hangs more heavily on her hands, she will find leisure and thought for me. What is more, the very uncertainties of her position, with the advice of her prudent mamma, will incline her to the ample provision for the future which I can furnish."