“No, and never will with you here bothering me so,” was the answer, while Tom drew stealthily nearer to her, and with a quick movement threw his arm around her and put his head down until his face touched hers and was reflected in the mirror beside her.
“Do you see him now?” he asked. “I do!”
There was a little scream and Rena fell back, pale and trembling.
“How dare you frighten me so and spoil it all!” she said. “Just for a moment when the shadow of a great bushy head began to come in sight I thought somebody was really coming, and it was only you, after all.” This was not very reassuring, but Tom didn’t mind. He knew Rena, and keeping his arm around her he led her to the seat under the pines, where he sat with her the first night of their visit to the well and she picked the needles from his sleeve and neck.
“Rena,” he began, and there was no banter in the tone of his voice, which was low and earnest and made Rena’s heart beat faster than it did when she first saw the shadow on the glass, “suppose I had not been here and my great bushy head had appeared beside you just the same and you had known it was I—old Tom you used to call me—would you have been more ready to say yes to me than you are now that I am here in flesh and blood, loving you with my whole soul, as I have done ever since you were a little toddling girl whose hand I held to steady her walk? It was such a little fat, dimpled hand, and the fingers clung to mine so confidingly that I feel the touch yet. That hand is a woman’s now, and I want it for my own. I said I would wait for years for your answer, if necessary, but I can’t do it, and I ask you now to be my wife; but think first how the matter stands. I have not much to offer you. With Rex you would get fifty thousand dollars in your own right, and this, you know, you lose if you marry me, who have very little beside my profession to depend upon. You will be a poor man’s wife.”
“There’s that ten thousand I am to have of Sandy McPherson’s money, no matter whom I marry; that’s something, besides what I already have. We shall not starve,” came in a smothered voice from Tom’s bosom, against which Rena’s face was pressed, and Tom knew the victory was won.
She had not said she would be his wife, but he was satisfied, and kissed her passionately again and again, and might have gone on kissing her if his Elysium had not been broken in upon by a shrill voice shouting, “Miss Rena, Miss Rena! where be you? It’s half-past twelve, and dinner is getting cold.”
It was Mrs. Parks calling as she had once called for Charlotte Anne. Dinner was ready and Miss Bennett’s digester in danger of getting more out of kilter by waiting than it already was. “I must go,” Rena said, freeing herself from Tom and smoothing her rumpled hair and collar. Tom did not try to detain her, but told her he was going to Newton that night, and should tell Rex before he left of his engagement. Then they parted and Rena hurried to the house, her cheeks like roses and her eyes bright as stars, as she took her seat with us at the table and apologized for being so late. Irene watched her curiously, and when they were alone in their room she said, “Miss Bennett told Tom you had gone to the well. Did you look in?”
“Yes,” Rena answered, “I looked in.”
“And you saw——?”