"Sorry you came back?" cried Mary, in a tone of alarm. "Oh, why do you say that, Mr. Arundel?"
"Because you are heiress to eleven thousand a year, Mary, and the Moated Grange behind us; and this dreary wood, and the river,––the river is yours, I daresay, Miss Marchmont;––and I wish you joy of the possession of so much sluggish water and so many square miles of swamp and fen."
"But what then?" Mary asked wonderingly.
"What then? Do you know, Polly darling, that if I ask you to marry me people will call me a fortune–hunter, and declare that I came to Marchmont Towers bent upon stealing its heiress's innocent heart, before she had learned the value of the estate that must go along with it? God knows they'd wrong me, Polly, as cruelly as ever an honest man was wronged; for, so long as I have money to pay my tailor and tobacconist,––and I've more than enough for both of them,––I want nothing further of the world's wealth. What should I do with all this swamp and fen, Miss Marchmont––with all that horrible complication of expired leases to be renewed, and income–taxes to be appealed against, that rich people have to endure? If you were not rich, Polly, I––––"
He stopped and laughed, striking the toe of his boot amongst the weeds, and knocking the pebbles into the water. The woman crouching in the shadow of the archway listened with whitened cheeks and glaring eyes; listened as she might have listened to the sentence of her death, drinking in every syllable, in her ravenous desire to lose no breath that told her of her anguish.
"If I were not rich!" murmured Mary; "what if I were not rich?"
"I should tell you how dearly I love you, Polly, and ask you to be my wife by–and–by."
The girl looked up at him for a few moments in silence, shyly at first, and then more boldly, with a beautiful light kindling in her eyes.
"I love you dearly too, Mr. Arundel," she said at last; "and I would rather you had my money than any one else in the world; and there was something in papa's will that made me think––"
"There was something that made you think he would wish this, Polly," cried the young man, clasping the trembling little figure to his breast. "Mr. Paulette sent me a copy of the will, Polly, when he sent my diamond–ring; and I think there were some words in it that hinted at such a wish. Your father said he left me this legacy, darling,––I have his letter still,––the legacy of a helpless girl. God knows I will try to be worthy of such a trust, Mary dearest; God knows I will be faithful to my promise, made nine years ago."