“How could you leave me in that reckless fashion?” he went on, reproachfully. “You struck a cruel blow at my heart by doing so, and a still more cruel blow when you wrote me that you intended to break our engagement. Why, little girl, I was sick for weeks from the effects of it, praying to die, I fought bitterly against allowing them to cure me; that will show you how completely I was wrapped up in your sweet self.
“The bitterest drop in my cup of woe was that they would not tell me where you had gone, in accordance with some foolish promise given. It seemed like a stroke of fate that I should come to New York, and in coming to visit an old friend stumble directly into the house where you were visiting. Do you not agree with me that it was indeed fate? If it had not been intended that we should be reunited, I would not have been able to discover where my pearl had hidden herself.
“But, dear me, come and sit down in this sunshiny bay window, my little Jess, that I may have a better look at my newly recovered treasure; you are now so royally, regally beautiful, that I can scarcely believe you are one and the same little Jess whom I met in the wilds of Louisiana that eventful September morning, which seems long months ago, though it is in reality not so very long ago.”
During the call, which seemed long and tedious to Jess, who was wondering if he would never, never go, her companion did all the talking, the girl barely answering in monosyllables, but he attributed this to bashfulness, though that was a trait in her character that he had not discovered during his brief sojourn at Blackheath Hall.
“With your permission, Jess,” he said at length, “I should like to talk about our wedding; when shall it take place, my own love?”
“Oh, I don’t know!” cried the girl, distractedly, “do not mention it to me—until the very last moment—and let it be as far off as you possibly can.”
His brow darkened.
“That is not a very kind speech, Jess,” he remarked, with considerable pique, “and does not speak very well for the depths of love you shall bear the man to whom you have plighted your troth.”
She looked up at him appealingly. It seemed to her if he uttered another word on the subject she would go mad. How could she listen to words of love or marriage from another’s lips when her heart lay buried in the grave of the man she had loved so passionately, with all the strength of her nature?
But she knew if she made the sacrifice which Queenie had impressed upon her was her solemn duty, she must make no outcry, utter no word of protestation against the marriage, or when it was to take place.