He drew a deep breath, as if the words relieved him, took her hand in his, and laid his other hand upon it, very seriously.
"It was well to ask: but I did not think you could so have mistaken me. Sara! I am not an imprudent man, as I fear Mark is; I could not, in justice to the woman whom I wish to make my wife, ask her to leave her home of comfort until I can surround her with one somewhat equivalent to it. I think--I hope--that another year may accomplish this. Meanwhile--you will not misunderstand me, or the motives of my silence?"
She lifted her eyes to his face to speak: they were swimming in tears: lifted them in her earnestness.
"I shall never misunderstand you, Oswald."
And Mr. Oswald Cray, for the first time in his life, bent his lips on hers to seal the tacit bargain.
[CHAPTER IX.]
EDWARD DAVENAL.
It was a charming evening in the month of October. The heat of summer was over, the cool calm autumn reign ad in all its loveliness. Never had the sun set more brilliantly than it was setting now; never did it give token of a finer day for the morrow; and that morrow was to be Caroline Davenal's wedding-day.
Persuasion and promises had proved stronger than Dr. Davenal and prudence, and he had consented to the early marriage, it may be said reluctantly. He had urged upon them the verb to wait: but neither of them appeared inclined to conjugate it; Caroline especially, strange as it may seem to have to say it, had turned a deaf ear. So the doctor had yielded, and the plans and projects for the carrying the wedding out were set on foot.
Dr. Davenal had behaved generously. He increased Mark Cray's share to four hundred a-year, and he gave them a cheque for three hundred pounds for furniture. "You must be content to have things at the beginning in a plain way, if you must be in a hurry," he said to them; "when you get on you can add costly furniture by degrees." Miss Bettina would not give anything. Not a penny-piece. "No," she said to Caroline; "you are flying in the face of wiser heads than yours, and I will not encourage it. If you don't mind, you'll come to grief."