“Dear miss,” said she, mimicking me, “your concern for my health en’t needed, I’ll assure you. I tell you solemnly that I’m to be married to-night, if the bridegroom don’t desire to shame me before all Calcutta.”
“But who’s the gentleman?” I cried.
“Mr Hurstwood, of course,” said she. Now Mr Hurstwood was the gentleman that we had seen in the gate of the Fort on our landing, and that Miss Hamlin had declared to me then and ever since to be her destined spouse, whenever I sought to discover whether her heart inclined in any particular direction, so that this fresh piece of pleasantry made me angry.
“Oh well, miss, if you choose to rally me at so solemn a moment——” said I.
“You’re like the good people that refused to believe the shepherd-lad when he cried ‘Wolf!’ miss. All I can say is that Mr Hurstwood is to have the chance of marrying me to-night. If he won’t take it, that’s his fault.”
“But there’s been no engagement of marriage between you. You was saying just now he knew nothing about it,” said I, excessively perplexed.
“Oh, pardon me, miss, I said the gentleman didn’t know the time I had fixed. To tell truth, I have been testing him. He—he pestered me so with his proposals that I accepted ’em to be rid of him, but I imposed my conditions. There was to be no public announcement, and I was to have the direction of everything, and I bade him have no hope of marrying me for at least a year.”
“Then he’s happier than you permitted him to expect, miss?”
“He made my life a burden to me with his importunities, miss. I have never had a peaceful moment but when I was in company.”
“Oh, miss,” I cried, “why try to deceive your friend any longer? There was a traitor in the camp. Your heart was on the gentleman’s side.”