“I am glad for Sherry and me,” she said, “but sorry for you, who have put so much expense on a place which did not belong to you, and I don’t see how we can pay you either, unless you rent the place for summer boarders until you are paid.”
Alex. knew her scheme was impracticable, but it was like her sense of justice.
“That can’t be,” he said. “You would not like to turn Maplehurst into a boarding-house. Sherry would not like it either. How is she to-day?”
“Better, but very weak,” was Katy’s reply. “She must not be excited in the least the doctor says. You must wait.”
And Alex. did wait very impatiently for Sherry’s convalescence. It progressed rapidly when once it began, and she was at last well enough to take a drive with him along the regular highway for a mile or two, when he turned into a grassy road leading into the woods, where in a clearing picnics had been held. The tables and seats were still there, and on one of the latter he sat down with Sherry, asking if she were tired from the drive.
“Tired!” she said, with a merry laugh. “No. It is so nice to be out again, to feel that I am getting well, that I could shout for joy; it is so lovely here in the shade, with the sunshine trying to find us through the trees, that I wish it might go on forever.”
Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were shining and there was a ring of gladness in her voice which made Alex. take one of her hands in his and hold it fast while he said, “I am glad you are so happy, and I think I can make you happier. I have brought you here to tell you something which will surprise you.”
Was it his love he was going to declare? It seemed like it, and Sherry’s whole soul sprang to meet it. During her convalescence she had learned to love the master of Maplehurst, and with her woman’s intuition guessed that he loved her. She could flirt with the young men at Buford, and keep half a dozen in her train, each thinking he was the favored one. But with Alex. it was different. She must deal fairly with him, and her eyes were cast down as she asked:
“What do you wish to tell me?”
She expected a declaration of love and was not prepared for the story Alex. told her, making her feel as if her blood were leaving her drop by drop until she was cold as the stones around her. Then she cried,—not a low cry, but loud with sobs, which shook her whole body and made Alex. pass his arm around her, and draw her head down upon his shoulder, where she let it lie. Through all the telling his love for her had shown itself, and it was to that she was responding, rather than to the story she heard of the sudden prosperity which was hers.