“To be sure I was, dearest. Do you think I would have gone with any one else, away from you—away from my own husband?”
“But I thought it quite impossible for you to be with him. He was far in the Atlantic, dear, before you ran away.”
“Before I ran away! Oh Kit, oh Kit! And you thought I had run away with somebody else! Oh, what has my misery been, compared with yours? No wonder you are thin, dear; no wonder you are gaunt. Why, I can’t think how you can have managed to keep alive. I am sure I should have been dead, buried, and forgotten. Thirteen months, a year and a month, to be thinking your own new-married wife had run away, like a bad woman! Oh dear! Don’t stop me; I must cry again, or I may do something worse. And you have not even got my letter yet.”
“No. But I dare say it will come by-and-by. I expected no letter from you, of course, because I had no idea where you were; but every day I hoped for one from your father. But they told me the mails from Ascension are uncertain, because they take their chance of passing ships. Sometimes they don’t come for months together.
“Now will you read this?” she cried, jumping up with her old impetuosity; “I am very glad I kept it, though it makes me creep every time I touch it. That explains everything. Who wrote that?”
“It is like my writing; but I never wrote a word of it, and never saw, or dreamed of it before.”
“Whoever wrote that letter, Kit,” my wife said very solemnly, “ought to have his portion for ever and ever in the bottomless pit, where the fire is not quenched. I could never have believed that any human being could possibly have conceived such wickedness. But don’t read it now; it would take too long, and spoil our perfect happiness, darling. We must not be so selfish. No more kisses, until we have done our duty. Just put me into trim again, and let me do my hair up, and we must both run down to Uncle Corny’s. Nobody has seen me yet, but you. What do you think I did? I was quite resolved that no one should see me, but my own husband. So I left my things at Feltham, and ran all the way—flew all the way, I ought to say, and came through Love Lane all alone. Oh, we will never part again, not even for a day, Kit, or half a day. You must never let me out of your sight any more.”
“And not out of my arms, when I can help it,” I said, as with my dear wife still enclasped, and her hair waving over my bounding heart, I took her through the quiet alleys of the summer night, just to show her for a minute—for I could not spare her more—to the loyal and good Uncle Corny.