John was glad to hear of the prosperity of his old overseer, and pushed on with a light heart to Juandah. He was met with a warm welcome. Mark Stangrove looked more prosperous, a trifle stouter and merrier; the good years had told in his favour. Maud was lovelier than ever, though she was certainly thinner and paler, so John Redgrave thought at first, with a pang of compunction, but after he had been there two or three days he fancied that he must have been mistaken, for the bloom on her cheek and the sparkle in her eye were as beautiful as ever.
“Oh, Maud, my darling,” said Jack, as they stood together in the veranda the evening of his arrival, “what time I have wasted! I go back to Marshmead a poorer man than when I left it, for I am burdened with a debt, and what years I have lost!”
“Don’t regret the past, dear Jack,” said Maud, sliding her little hand into his; “perhaps if you had never left Marshmead you would always have been a little dissatisfied with it; besides, if you had never left it we should not have met.”
“I would bear it all over again if you were the prize at the end, Maud.”
“Once is enough,” said Maud, with an arch glance from her bright eyes.
“And I may have my prize?”
“Yes, when you are ready,” replied Maud, demurely.
“I’m ready now, you saucy girl,” said Jack, laughing, though he winced at the implied reproach in her words, “and I have a great mind to take you at your word, and carry you off to Marshmead at once.”
“Come back when you like, my dear fellow,” said Mark Stangrove, who had just joined them, “and then we’ll see about it.”
The week passed all too quickly, but Jack resolved that it should not be very long before he returned, and certain whispered conferences with Maud settled the time.