I seemed to feel as if I had no room to expand. I had begun to ask myself whether I had been wise in marrying John, whether John was really sufficient for my development. I felt cramped and shut in. In spite of myself the question would arise in my mind whether John really understood my nature. He had a way of reading the newspaper, propped up against the sugar-bowl, at breakfast, that somehow made me feel as if things had gone all wrong. It was bitter to realize that the time had come when John could prefer the newspaper to his wife's society.
But perhaps I had better go back and tell the whole miserable story from the beginning.
I shall never forget—I suppose no woman ever does—the evening when John first spoke out his love for me. I had felt for some time past that it was there. Again and again, he seemed about to speak. But somehow his words seemed to fail him. Twice I took him into the very heart of the little wood beside Mother's house, but it was only a small wood, and somehow he slipped out on the other side. "Oh, John," I had said, "how lonely and still it seems in the wood with no one here but ourselves! Do you think," I said, "that the birds have souls?" "I don't know," John answered, "let's get out of this." I was sure that his emotion was too strong for him. "I never feel a bit lonesome where you are, John," I said, as we made our way among the underbrush. "I think we can get out down that little gully," he answered. Then one evening in June after tea I led John down a path beside the house to a little corner behind the garden where there was a stone wall on one side and a high fence right in front of us, and thorn bushes on the other side. There was a little bench in the angle of the wall and the fence, and we sat down on it.
"Minnie," John said, "there's something I meant to say——"
"Oh, John," I cried, and I flung my arms round his neck. It all came with such a flood of surprise.
"All I meant, Minn——" John went on, but I checked him.
"Oh, don't, John, don't say anything more," I said. "It's just too perfect." Then I rose and seized him by the wrist. "Come," I said, "come to Mother," and I rushed him along the path.
As soon as Mother saw us come in hand in hand in this way, she guessed everything. She threw both her arms round John's neck and fairly pinned him against the wall. John tried to speak, but Mother wouldn't let him. "I saw it all along, John," she said. "Don't speak. Don't say a word. I guessed your love for Minn from the very start. I don't know what I shall do without her, John, but she's yours now; take her." Then Mother began to cry and I couldn't help crying too. "Take him to Father," Mother said, and we each took one of John's wrists and took him to Father on the back verandah. As soon as John saw Father he tried to speak again—"I think I ought to say," he began, but Mother stopped him. "Father," she said, "he wants to take our little girl away. He loves her very dearly, Alfred," she said, "and I think it our duty to let her go, no matter how hard it is, and oh, please Heaven, Alfred, he'll treat her well and not misuse her, or beat her," and she began to sob again.
Father got up and took John by the hand and shook it warmly.
"Take her, boy," he said. "She's all yours now, take her."