“It is—to win you. I am not good enough for you, I know that, but I can not give up this dear hope. Will you stand by me if they refuse?”
She made no reply. How could she make any reply? She held his arm tight, and drooped her head. She had never stood against them in her life. She was aghast at the thought. Everything in life had been plain to her till now. But her eyes were dazzled with the sudden new light, and the possibility of darkness coming after it. The confusion of betrothal, refusal, delight, dismay, all coming together, bewildered her inexperienced soul. “No, no, no,” she murmured; “oh, no; they will never be against us.”
“No,” he cried, in subdued tones of triumph; “not against us, if you will stand by me. Ally! then it is you and I against the world!”
And then there was the glitter and glimmer before her eyes, the impatient mare tossing her nervous head, the wintery sun gleaming in the harness, in the horse’s sleek coat, in the varnish of the dog-cart: and then the sudden rush of sound, and all was gone like a dream. Like a dream—like a sudden phantasmagoria, in which she too had been a vision like the rest, and heard and saw and done and said things inconceivable. To turn back after that on everything that was so familiar and calm, to remember that she must go and put into water the snow-drops, which were already dropping limp in the hand that he had kissed—that she must face them all in the preoccupation of her thoughts—was almost as wonderful to Ally as this wonderful moment that was past. “You and I against the world.” And those other shorter words that meant so little apparently, “Ally—you are not angry?” kept murmuring and floating about her, making an atmosphere round her. Would the others hear her when she went in? That fear seized upon Ally as she drew near the door, coming slowly, slowly along the path. They would hear the words, “Ally, are you angry?” but would they know what that meant? she said to herself in her dream as she reached the door. No, no; they might hear them, but they would not understand—that was her secret between her love and her. To think that in such little words, that look so innocent, everything could be said!
But nobody took any notice of Ally when she went in at last. They were all occupied with their own affairs, and with the one overpowering sentiment which made them insensible to other things. Ally went into the midst of them with her secret in her eyes like a lamp in a sanctuary, but they never perceived it. She put her snow-drops in water, all but two or three which she took to her room with her, feeling them too sacred even to be worn, even to be left for Anne to see. But where could she put them to keep them secret? She had no secret places to keep anything in, nor had she ever known what it was to have a secret in all her innocent life. How, oh, how was she to keep this?
CHAPTER XLIII.
ALLY’S SECRET.
As a matter of fact she did not keep it at all.
The others were very anxious, lost in their thoughts, their minds all quivering with anxiety and hope and fear, but still there were moments when the tension relaxed a little. It was very highly strung at first while the excitement of Rochford’s departure and of Sir Edward’s encounter with him was still in the air, but by degrees this died away, and a sense of increased serenity, of greater hope, released their souls from that bondage. Lady Penton after a long silence began again to talk a little about the new house.
“I don’t know what we can do with these poor old things in Penton,” she said; “such a beautiful house as it is, everybody says, and so many pretty things in it: and all we have is so shabby. Ally, you are the only one that has seen it.”
“Yes, mother,” said Ally, waking up as from a dream.