“At least we shall be buried in the same grave, so I am content.”
“And I,” he answered as happily.
Thus we find them, in late August, by the sea, where Berry recovered her health and spirits again, and so in love with the free, wild life of the unconventional village of hardy fisher folk that both were loath to leave. So they lingered on, from day to day, saying “it is so pleasant staying, and so cheap living, we will not go away until we get news from California of the success of the suit for his mother’s fortune.”
Since she grew well and strong again, Berry had taken up her studies with zest, by Charley’s wish, trying to make herself equal in education to any position she might be called on to fill in the future.
For she knew now that, dearly as he loved her, there was a silent ache in his warm heart for those who cast him off in anger, and that he hoped against hope for a reconciliation at some future day when his bride’s true worth and beauty shall be known and acknowledged.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
TURN OF THE TIDE.
The lawsuit had dragged on interminably for six months, and it seemed as if a decision would never be reached, so that Charley was getting very poor, indeed, and very impatient, although, to tell the truth, he was finding that love in a cottage was very charming, after all, as there were funds enough coming from his lawyer still to keep the young pair in bread and cheese and a little more.
In the meantime Charley’s two beautiful sisters had both married in June, and the newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic had duly chronicled the grand double wedding at Bonair, when Marie and Lucile had wedded the rich New Yorkers to whom they had been betrothed before Charley’s mad marriage. They had crossed the Atlantic on their wedding tour and were now in Switzerland. Along with reports of the wedding was an item that made Charley throw down the paper he was reading, with a sigh from the bottom of his heart.
“Hello, Berry, we are in hard luck now, to be sure! Dad will never be reconciled to us now, never! He is going to give me Rosalind for a stepmother!”
Berry was lounging on the sands in an old blue boating suit, her hat lying at her feet and her curly hair blowing about her tanned face and rosy cheeks that suddenly grew pale, as she turned a solemn pair of eyes on his face.