Through these lovely rose-gardens and tree-shaded lawns frequently now wandered Annie, alone with Fletcher. He was so gentle, winning, and true that she had come to like him. Mind, I say nothing of love. And she innocently and frankly told him so as they sat together in a natural bower beneath a spreading deodar cedar. He was happy, but he would not risk his chance by being too precipitate.
Another day in the same arbour, after a moment or two of silence, she said: “Oh, I wish you were my uncle!” Fletcher winced a little, but summoned up courage to say:
“Ah, Annie, could we not be united by a dearer tie than that? Believe me, I love you more than life itself. Whether that life be long or short depends upon you, Annie.”
But she only bent her head and cried, childlike.
“Ah, Mr Fletcher,” she said at last, “I have no heart to give away. It lies at the bottom of the sea.”
“But love would come.”
“We will go to the house now, I think,” and she rose.
Fletcher, poor fellow, silently, almost broken-heartedly, followed, and, of course, the Great Dane was there.
That night she told her uncle all. He said not a word. She told her maid in the bedroom.