‘You have been a bride of brides,’ he said to her one day, when a few weeks of this dream had gone. ‘You have never asked me where we were to go, or what we were to do. I wish I could reward you for your trust, my love, and take you to a fine castle, and say you were queen——’
‘It was not that,’ said Isabel, ‘don’t praise me too much. It was because I had so much in my mind I forgot. But, Horace, it is trust now.’
‘And that is all I want,’ he said, ‘and we can settle together where we are to go.’
‘But you have your own home?’ said Isabel.
‘I sold that; did I never tell you? I have no ties but you now,’ he said. ‘I meant to have gone to America—two years ago. Shall we go now? or shall we stay in your own country? or what are we to do?’
‘I have been a fool,’ cried Isabel, ‘to think of nothing all this time. But you must have had plans of your own.’
‘Yes, to disappear out of the world if you would not have me,’ he said; ‘but since I knew you would have me, everything else has gone out of my head.’ And then she clasped his arm with both her hands, and they walked on forgetting everything, even their plans. Oh, how different it was from the tender quiescence with which she had accepted the minister’s love! That had been but a dream and this was life.
They went on together wandering along the beach which was lit up by all the glories of the sunset. She too happy to think of anything; he absorbed in her.
‘Oh, Horace, how different everything is!’ she said. Her heart was full and spoke out of its abundance. ‘If I could have thought this would ever come in those weary days when I looked for you, and you stayed away from me——’
‘But you forgot me, Isabel.’