“And I too, dearest,” I said, holding her hand tenderly in mine. “But, truth to tell, I have no confidence in that man. There was something about him that I didn’t like, and this latest move has increased my suspicion.”
“What suspicion?”
“That his intentions were not honest ones!” I answered.
“Why, Clifton,” she cried, “what an absurd fancy! Do you think that because I broke off his acquaintance, he intends to murder me?”
“I have no definite views on the subject,” I answered, “except that he intended to do you some evil, and has up to the present been thwarted.”
“You’ll make me quite nervous if you talk like that,” she responded, laughing. “Let us forget him. You once admired that woman, Aline Cloud, but that circumstance has passed out of my mind.”
“You must leave that place and go down to Stamford,” I said decisively. “A rest in the country will do you good, and in a few months we will marry.”
“I’ll have to give a month’s notice before I leave,” she answered.
“No. Leave to-morrow,” I said. “For I cannot bear to think, dearest, that now you are to be my wife you should still bear that terrible drudgery.”
She sighed, and her countenance grew troubled, as if something oppressed her. This caused me some apprehension, for it seemed as though, even now, she was not perfectly happy.