"Nay, please, Ray, let me have my way in this," Mona pleaded, with crimson cheeks. She could not tell him that she felt sensitive about becoming his wife until she could have absolute proof of the legal marriage of her father and mother.
He bent down and looked earnestly into her face.
"Mona, is that the only reason why you wish to wait? You do not shrink from our union from any doubt of your own heart—of your love for me, or mine for you?" he gravely asked.
"No, indeed, Ray," and she put out both her hands to him, with an eagerness that entirely reassured him even before she added: "I cannot tell you how glad, how restful, how content I am since your coming to-night. I was so lonely and sorrowful, the future looked so dark and cheerless because I feared I had lost you; but now all is bright."
She dropped her face again upon his breast to hide the blushes this confession had called up, and the happy tears also that were dropping from her long lashes.
He gathered her close to his heart, thrilling at her words.
"Then I will try to be patient for three months, love," he murmured, "and meantime I suppose you will have to be Ruth Richards to me as well as to others."
"Yes, it will not do to have my real name known—that will spoil all," Mona replied, with a sigh, for her truthful soul recoiled with as much aversion from all deception as he possibly could do.
"And am I not to see you during all this time?" Ray ruefully asked.
"Oh, yes; not to see you would be unbearable to me," Mona responded quickly. "Can you not manage to have some one introduce me to you as Miss Richards while you are here? then neither Mrs. Montague nor any one else would think it strange if you should seek me occasionally; only—"