As they were walking slowly back arm in arm through the park, Conroy broke the thrilling silence. "Do you know, cara mia, what the world will call me? It will brand me as a fortune-hunter, and say that I should never have sought you for my wife had you not been the mistress of Heron Dyke."
The words sent a shock through her, like a dart. Was she the mistress of Heron Dyke? She was not, if there were truth in what Hubert Stone had declared to her. Her lover's constancy might be put to the test before long in a way he little dreamed of now. "You can afford to smile at anything the world may choose to say," she answered. "So can I so long as I have vanity enough to think that you care for me for myself alone."
"But that I had the fear of your broad acres before my eyes I should have spoken to you long ere this," he answered. "Had your uncle been a poor man, or you not his heiress, I should have asked you at his hands last autumn."
How sweet the words sounded to her--how true was their ring!--and after what that other man had said!
"Suppose that when you return from Spain, you should find that I am no longer mistress of Heron Dyke!" she cried impulsively. "Suppose you should find that, by some mischance or other, I am poor instead of rich? What would you say then to your intended wife?"
"I should say, 'What seems to you a loss has made me one of the happiest fellows alive.' I should say, 'Let us marry at once, however humble our home may be.' I should say, 'I am glad that your riches have taken to themselves wings; it is only fit and proper that a man should work for his wife.' I don't think," he added, "that I could love you more than I do now, but somehow you might perhaps seem closer to me if you came to me as the beggar-maid went to King Cophetua."
Ella sighed. It was happiness to hear him talk thus; and yet his words brought to her a sting of pain. How glad she would be to endow him with every worldly good--and who seemed so fit to be the master of Heron Dyke? And yet, perhaps--who could say?--he might love her all the better if she went to him in a cotton gown, with a simple flower in her hair.
"But what makes you talk as if Heron Dyke and you were about to part company?" he presently asked.
"Perhaps we may be: I cannot tell," she answered, a cloud as of trouble passing over her face.
Conroy saw it, and looked perplexed. He bit his lip.