“The thought was unbearable, and I resolved upon a desperate measure. I wrote again to her, confessing my love—that I had always loved her, and begging her to come to me and share my life in the West. I told her that I would gladly give up fortune—everything—if she would become my wife; and I meant to, by another year, or as soon as I could sell to advantage. I told her, also, that I could not come on for her, as my interests at the mines would not admit of my being absent long enough for that, but I would meet her at Kansas City, Missouri, where we would be immediately married, and then proceed to our simple home among the mountains of Mew Mexico. I begged her not to say anything to any one where she was going until after our marriage, when I preferred to announce the fact myself. I sent her a route carefully mapped out, and a check ample for all her needs, begging her to telegraph me the day and the hour that she would start. You have the telegram she sent in reply there,” Colonel Mapleson said, turning to Geoffrey, and glancing at the package which still lay on the table beside him.
“I have always kept that precious bit of paper,” he resumed, “for its contents made me almost wild with joy when I received it. I set out immediately to join my dear one, reaching Kansas City only a few hours previous to her own arrival. I had everything arranged, however, and we drove directly from the station to the house of a prominent clergyman of the city, where we were married in the presence of his household, and three hours later we were on our way to New Mexico.
“But I knew it would never do for me to take my wife to the Morena Mines, where I was known by men who were also from the South, and through whom the knowledge of my marriage would soon travel back to Virginia. Only a short time previous I had bought out a man in another district, getting his claim for a mere song, and not a soul in the place knew me. I resolved to take Annie there, make just as pretty and comfortable a home as I could for her, call myself William Dale, going back and forth from one mine to the other, as my business demanded it, until I was satisfied to sell out altogether and return to Virginia, proclaim my marriage, and give Miss Everet the other half of her fortune. But when I confessed this to Annie, as of course I had to do in order to assume her name, she was very unhappy. She was not lacking in spirit either, and made me almost despise myself for the part I had played.
“‘I would never have come to you if I had known this,’ she said. ‘I hate deception and double-dealing of whatever nature. You might have told me frankly how you were situated, and I would have waited and been faithful to you until you could have openly made me your wife.’
“‘But you would not have allowed me to take care of you,’ I replied.
“‘No,’ she answered, flushing; ‘my pride would not have yielded to that, but I could have done very well for myself for a while, and waited patiently until it was right that we should be married.’
“I had a hard task to pacify her. She was determined at first that the whole truth should be confessed, saying she would not occupy a false position. But when I told her that it would ruin me to force a sale of my stock; that I should lose all the hard labor of the three years that I had spent there, and not even then be able to replace the money from Uncle Jabez’s fortune which I had invested, she became more reasonable. I promised that if she would try and be patient and happy for a year, I would replace every dollar that was not my own, and have something handsome besides, as a capital for myself.
“I honestly meant to do all this, for I knew that I should never thoroughly regain the respect of my wife until I had redeemed my position and hers before the world.”
CHAPTER XLIV.
THE COLONEL’S STORY CONCLUDED.
“Annie and I were very happy,” Colonel Mapleson went on, after a momentary pause, “during the year that followed—happy in spite of a little cloud that had arisen so soon after our marriage, for our prospects were very encouraging. I was doing finely. Every month my profits were increasing, and thus the time of our emancipation was growing nearer. If I could only replace what now no longer properly belonged to me, Annie said she would be content to remain in that mining country as long as I desired. She was willing to live simply, even frugally, if I would only do right, acknowledge our marriage before the world, and not have to hide like a couple of criminals.