"Do you really read Heine in the original?" she asked, quickly.
"And only a stage-driver," he returned, with the old sarcasm, seeing that she hesitated. "Yes; I read Heine in German—or did. I read nothing now. I drive stage."
There was painful silence; an apology would have made matters worse; but seeing the grieved expression on her face, he continued, in his gentlest voice, "You say you are coming this way again in the course of the season—coming with me—in my stage? You wonder how I came to be stage-driver; when we are better acquainted, and you think it worth while to remind me of my promise, I will tell you my story."
"And forgive me now?" she asked, extending her hand. The glove came off his right hand, and the fingers that clasped hers were not less white and soft, but strong they looked—strong as iron. "Thanks," she said; and he felt, somehow, that she wanted her veil just then, and he pretended to discover it, by chance, on the seat.
In the course of the season she came again—more than once—coming always when she knew she would meet his stage at the San Mateo depot.
One bright day in October, when, after the drought of the long summer, the earth had been refreshed by generous autumn showers, Stella again sat beside him, high up, on the driver's seat. The same azure was in the sky, the same deep blue on the waters; it was all as it had been the day she first saw the tangled wildwood by the brook, the spreading live-oak by the roadside—only, the foliage on the brush had changed its colors to deep-red and yellow.
"You once said," began Stella, timidly—for she had learned that his temper was very uneven—"that if I reminded you of your promise when we were better acquainted, you would tell me your story."
He turned and looked steadily into her faltering eyes a moment, then drew his hat down over his brows, and commenced, without further preliminaries:
"Her name was Sylvia—and her eyes were as deep as a well; so deep that I don't think I ever quite fathomed them. When my mother died, she said we were both young, and we must not be married until at least a year had passed over my mother's grave. I was touched with the sympathy she displayed on this sorrowful occasion; so was my father. I was his only son, and would undoubtedly fall heir to his wealth—great wealth—after his death. I had grown up as rich men's only sons generally grow up; had visited schools, colleges, universities; was called good-looking, a clever fellow generally, the best driver of a four-in-hand, the best shot—in short, a great catch for any girl to make. Sylvia told me so herself often. But, after all, I was only the son, you see, and my father might live for twenty years longer, and if Sylvia married me, she married only a prospect—whereas, if she married my father, she was the wife of a wealthy man at once. I had not been brought up to business habits, as Sylvia pointed out, and if my father ever became displeased with me—of which he showed strong symptoms about this time—I should be thrown on the world with a wife as helpless as myself, and as poor. For Sylvia, though brought up among aristocratic relatives, was as poor as a church mouse. What need to make many words? She married my father before the year was out, and I left home secretly on the morning of their wedding-day, with never a cent of the riches which had bought my best-beloved to be my father's bride—never a dollar of all the wealth I had been taught to look upon as my own.