“Oh, Maude,” was all he could say, as he looked into the face he had seen so often in his dreams, though never as beautiful as it was now. “Maude,” he began at last, “I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you again, or how glad I am for your success. I read the book in Rome. Archie sent it to me, and I have come to congratulate you.”
He was talking so fast and pressing her hands so hard that he almost took her breath away. But she released herself from him, and, determining to have the business off her mind as soon as possible, began abruptly:
“I was surprised to hear of your arrival, and glad, too, as it saves me the trouble of writing you. I can buy Spring Farm now. You know you promised to keep it for me. What is your price?”
“How much can you give?” Max asked; and without stopping to consider the strangeness of the question, Maude told him frankly the size of the check she had received, and asked if it were enough.
“No, Maude,” Max said, and over the face looking so anxiously at him there fell a cloud of disappointment as Maude replied:
“Is it much more you ask?”
“Yes, a great deal more,” and Max seated himself beside her upon the sofa, for she was now sitting down; “but I think you can arrange it. Don’t look so sorry; It is you I want, not your money. Will you give me yourself in return for Spring Farm?”
He had her hands again, but she drew them from him, and covering her face with them, began to cry, while he went on:
“Five years is a long time to wait for one we love, and I have waited that length of time, with thoughts of you in my heart, almost as much as thoughts of Grace, whom I loved dearly while she lived. But she is dead, and could she speak she would bid you grant me the happiness I have been denied so many years. I think she knew it would come some day. I am sure she did, and she told me she was willing. I did not mean to ask you quite so soon, but the sight of you, and the belief that you care for me as I care for you, has made me forget all the proprieties, and I cannot recall my words, so I ask you again to be my wife, to give me yourself as the price of Spring Farm, which shall be your home as long as you choose to make it so. Will you, Maude? I have come thousands of miles for your answer, which must not be no.”
What else he said, or what she said, it is not necessary for the reader to know; only this, that when the two walked back to the cottage Maude said to her mother, “I am to marry Mr. Gordon in June, and you will spend the summer in our old home, and John will go to college in the fall.”