“I mean I wish you were really grown and your own master, and as fond of Lee as you are now. I must die soon; I had hoped to live until Lee was grown and married, but my will won’t last me much longer. It is of that I think constantly as I lie here, not of my pain.”
“I’ll marry Lee if you like,” said Cecil obligingly. “I like her very much; it would suit me jolly well to have her in England.”
Mrs. Tarleton raised herself on her arm. Her thin cheeks fairly expanded with the colour that flew to them. The boy could see the fluttering of her exhausted heart.
“Cecil,” she said solemnly, “promise me that you will marry Lee. I am a good judge of human nature. I know that you would be kind to her. I know of no one else to leave her to. Promise me.”
“I promise,” said Cecil promptly. But he had an odd sensation that the room had grown suddenly smaller.
“If I die before you go, take her with you if your father will consent. She has a little money and will not be a burden. If your father won’t take her come back for her when you are of age. Remember that you have given your solemn promise to a dying woman.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Cecil faintly. He was young and masculine and unanalytical; but instinct told him that Mrs. Tarleton was unfair, and he cooled to her, and to the sex through her, for the time being. He slipped out as Lee awoke.
The next day when he returned, the unpleasant sensations induced by Mrs. Tarleton had almost vanished. On the fourth day, as he and Lee were sitting before the fire popping corn—Mrs. Tarleton’s nerves being under the influence of morphine—Lee remarked with some asperity:
“I wish you wouldn’t stare at me so.”
“I was just thinking,” he said. “I am going to be your husband, you know.”