“Let’s get out of the way before he discovers us,” she said tactfully, “though I’d like to march straight over there and tell him how proud I am of him.”
Nannie, who had ideas of her own, rode off with her father when they started home. A mile or two on, the Colonel stopped and waited for them to overtake them, when he said, if Hester and Landor would excuse them he and Nannie would stop at the house in front of which they had halted and make a call. So the girl and man rode on alone through the beautiful woods which led to—was it happiness or only Wavertree Hall?
“Have you enjoyed it?” he asked when they had gone a little way.
“Oh! so much.”
“Even if you had to politely put up with me?”
“Well, there were others, you see. Mr. Bemis, and all those charming officers at dinner. Now I think of it, you never took us to the Virginia camp. Is Captain Loomis away?” looking up at him as if the whereabouts of that individual was the thing which most concerned her.
He laid his hand for a moment over hers. “It’s no use,” he said, “you can’t put me off with Loomis or any other man.”
The intense subdued manner in which he said it deepened the color in her cheeks, but her dimples played mischievously.
“What are you going to do about it?” she asked.
“Hester,” he replied, “do you remember a night in April when you and I talked together and you were kind and said things that would inspire a man to do anything? It was the first time you had ever been serious with me and you thought it was the first time I knew of the serious side of you, but that was not true. You turned my life into a new, better channel from the moment I first set eyes on you, dear. And I loved you so that night on the coach that I didn’t know how I was ever going to get through without telling you, but I didn’t want to take advantage of your goodness and I knew you cared nothing for me, though I was determined you should some day.” His voice rang out in the masterful way she had so often berated to Julie. “I am telling you this now because my opportunities of seeing you are so few and soon they may end altogether. Oh! Hester,” he cried, finding it impossible to restrain himself any longer, “couldn’t you learn to love me a little before I go away?”