“I won’t go, Edith! I’ll stay here with you. Nothing else counts with me but you—only you. I’ll—”
“I want you to go, Joe, darling,” said she, with quivering lips; “but I thought—only I know you wouldn’t! I—if we could just get married before you go, and not tell any one till you come back—just so that we’d really belong to each other—then it wouldn’t be so hard!”
And Hardy, the bold, the rash, the magnificent, who hated anything secret and furtive, looked only once at her dear face, and agreed.
V
“You’re late again, Miss Patterson,” said Mr. Dunne.
“I’m awfully sorry,” said Edith. “I’ll really try not to again.”
But she didn’t look sorry. She sat down at her desk, flushed and a little out of breath, and, to Mr. Dunne’s great displeasure, there was a smile hovering about her lips.
“Miss Patterson,” said he, “I’m afraid this is once too often.”
Edith looked up in alarm.
“But, you see—” she began, and stopped.