He bent down to listen for the reply, feeling her breath stir his hair, and hearing each heart-beat as it counted off the seconds. Then like a strain of music, sweet and rich, but oh, so touchingly sad, the words came floating in a whisper to his ear, "Yes, Richard, your future wife; but please, don't call yourself the old blind man. It makes you seem a hundred times my father. You are not old, Richard—no older than I feel!" and the newly betrothed laid her head on Richard's shoulder, sobbing passionately.
Did all girls behave like this? Richard wished he knew. Did sweet Lucy Collingwood, when she gave her young spring life to his father's brown October? Lucy had loved her husband, he knew, and there was quite as much difference between them as between himself and Edith. Possibly 'twas a maidenly weakness to cry, as Edith was doing. He would think so at all events. It were death to think otherwise, and caressing her with unwonted tenderness, he kissed her tears away, telling her how happy she had made him by promising to be his—how the darkness, the dreariness all was gone, and the world was so bright and fair. Then, as she continued weeping and he remembered what had heretofore passed between them, he said to her earnestly: "Edith, there is one thing I would know. Is it a divided love you bring me, or is it no love at all. I have a right to ask you this, my darling. Is it gratitude alone which prompted your decision? If it is, Edith, I would die rather than accept it. Don't deceive me, darling, I cannot see your face— cannot read what's written there. Alas! alas! that I am blind to- night; but I'll trust you, birdie; I'll believe what you may tell me. Has an affection, different from a sister's, been born within the last four weeks? Speak! do you love me more than you did? Look into my eyes, dearest; you will not deal falsely with me then."
Like an erring, but penitent child, Edith crept into his lap, but did not look into the sightless eyes. She dared not, lest the gaze should wring from her quivering lips the wild words trembling there, "Forgive me, Richard, but I loved Arthur first." So she hid her face in his bosom, and said to him,
"I do not love you, Richard, as you do me. It came too sudden, and I had not thought about it. But I love you dearly, very dearly, and I want so much to be your wife. I shall rest so quietly when I have you to lean upon, you to care for. I am young for you, I know, but many such matches have proved happy, and ours assuredly will. You are so good, so noble, so unselfish, that I shall be happy with you. I shall be a naughty, wayward wife, I fear, but you can control me, and you must. We'll go to Europe sometime, Richard, and visit Bingen on the Rhine, where the little baby girl fell in the river, and the brave boy Richard jumped after her. Don't you wish you'd let me die? There would then have been no bad black-haired Edith lying in your lap, and torturing you with fears that she does not love you as she ought."
Edith's was an April temperament, and already the sun was shining through the cloud; the load at her heart was not so heavy, nor the future half so dark. Her decision was made, her destiny accepted, and henceforth she would abide by it nor venture to look back.
"Are you satisfied to take me on my terms?" she asked, as Richard did not immediately answer.
He would rather she had loved him more, but it was sudden, he knew, and she was young. He was terribly afraid, it is true, that gratitude alone had influenced her actions, but the germ of love was there, he believed; and by and by it would bear the rich, ripe fruit. He could wait for that; and he loved her so much, wanted her so much, needed her so much, that he would take her on any terms.
"Yes" he said at last, resting his chin upon her bowed head, "I am satisfied, and never since my rememberance, has there come to Richard Harrington a moment so fraught with bliss as this in which I hold you in my arms and know I hold my wife, my darling wife, sweetest name ever breathed by human tongue—and Edith, if you must sicken of me, do it now—to-night. Don't put it off, for every fleeting moment binds me to you with an added tie, which makes it harder to lose you."
"Richard," and, lifting up her head, Edith looked into the eyes she could not meet before, "I swear to you, solemnly, that never, by word or deed, will I seek to be released from our engagement, and if I am released, it will be because you give me up of your own free will. You will be the one to break it, not I."
"Then it will not be broken," came in a quick response from Richard, as he held closer to him one whom he now felt to be his forever.