Then, rapidly and passionately, he told his love, which began years before, when she said her prayers at his side and played with the cats and Chance and worried the hens and fed old Sorrel, and he drew her on the sled and set up the Christmas tree for her. Nothing was omitted, and as she saw it all again her tears came hot and fast until, by the time he asked her to be his wife, they were falling like rain, and her hands were stretched toward him as for help. He took it as a good omen, and going to her, wound his arms around her, while for one brief moment she let her head rest on his bosom like a tired child. Then, with a great sob, like a cry of pain, she released herself from him and said: “Oh, Kenneth, if I only could, but I can’t. There is something in the way. But just this once I may say I am happier for your love, and sometime, perhaps,—God only knows, and I have borne so much, and there is such an ache in my heart, such humiliation and shame, that the knowing a good, honest man like you loves me is a comfort, even though it cannot be, and I must not tell you why. Something happened in Switzerland a year last summer which will keep me from being your wife. I was some to blame, though not as much as the other party, for, shut up in a convent school as I had been for years, I knew little of the world, while he——”
“It was a he,” Kenneth said a little sharply, and Connie replied: “Yes, but I cannot tell you any more now, except that I was foolish,—not wicked; never that. Oh, Kenneth, you must believe me a good girl, even if I do not tell you all, and you must stand by me and let me stay here. I should go insane anywhere else. Strange that the knowing you love me helps me so much. Don’t let your father and mother know.”
She stretched her hand to him again, and he took it and held it between both his own. It was terrible to lose her, but would be more terrible for her to go away where he could not see her, and while his chin quivered with the emotion he tried to suppress, he asked, “Do you love that man?”
“No!” and a hot gleam of passion leaped into Connie’s eyes. “I thought I did, but that is past, and if he stood here now as you stand suing for my love, I’d spurn him as I would a snake. I have thought he might be dead. I shall find out in time, and when I do I will tell you all. Now I cannot. Don’t refer to it again. Let me be just Connie, a weak girl, trusting you as a brother, happier to be here than anywhere else.”
She had talked rather incoherently, but Kenneth understood that for the present at least he could only love her with no hope of a consummation by marriage. There was a bar between them, but she was as pure as the wintry snow. He was sure of that, and said to her at last: “I’ll wait, and hope and pray that the obstacle may be removed.”
“I knew you would, and you have made me as happy as I ever can be until it is removed,” she said, lifting her face in such a confiding way that a hundred obstacles could not have prevented him from stooping down and kissing it, feeling, as he did so, that it was a kiss of betrothal which would last during all time.
They were very silent on their way back to the house, where, fortunately for Kenneth, he found several calls for his professional services. It was well for him to be busy, as it kept his mind from dwelling on Connie and the mystery he must not try to fathom. It was some comfort to know she was in his home, a sunbeam in his parents’ life and all the world to him, with her sunny face and smile and words of welcome when he came in from his round of calls.
“Sometime I shall know,” he thought, and the time was nearer than he supposed.
CHAPTER XIV
MRS. HARRY MORRIS
After that walk to the ledge Connie seemed much happier, and began to take a lively interest in the Morris villa, the work on which was being pushed rapidly. Mr. Jones had called upon the deacon for his signature to Harry’s note for three thousand dollars, payable in six months. Connie was seated upon the piazza when he came, and through the open door could not fail to hear the conversation between the three men, Mr. Jones, the deacon and Kenneth, the latter of whom objected to his father’s pledging himself for so large a sum.