Part 15 (2/2)
Elizabeth heard the door of the room open behind her; and when she saw Salve unexpectedly standing before her, she sank down for a moment on to a chair, but got up the next with a scared look, almost as if he was some hostile apparition.
”Elizabeth!” he said, gently, ”are you going to send me out again into the world? G.o.d only knows how I shall come back if you do.”
She did not answer, but stood looking at him with a rigid expression, and pale as death; she seemed to have forgotten to breathe, and to be only waiting for him to say more.
”Be my wife, Elizabeth,” he asked, ”and I shall grow up into a good man again. What a pitiful creature I have been without you, you have already seen sufficiently this morning.”
”G.o.d be my witness, Salve,” she answered, the tears bursting into her eyes with emotion which she tried to control, ”you alone have always had my heart--but I must first know in perfect truth what you think of me.”
”The same as I think of G.o.d's angels, Elizabeth,” he said from his heart, and tried to take her hand.
”Do you know that I--was once very nearly engaged to young Beck?” she asked, reddening, but with a steady look. ”I didn't know my real self then, but was thinking only of folly and nonsense, until I was obliged to fly from it all.”
”Your aunt has told me all about it, Elizabeth. Don't let us mention the subject again.”
”And you haven't a doubt about me in your heart? For that I never will bear, Salve, like to-day,--I can't bear it, do you understand?” she said, with a shake in her voice, and looking as it were down into his very soul.
”Doubt!” he said; and for that moment, at all events, he was evidently convinced that she had never given her real heart to any one but himself.
A look of inexpressible happiness came into her face; he caught her into his arms, and they stood as if they never would let go of each other again, cheek to cheek, not speaking, not thinking even. There was something convulsive in their embrace, as if they could not believe in the reality of their happiness, and as if they felt an instinctive dread that they should lose it again.
Un.o.bserved by either of them the door had opened, and in the doorway stood pursy Garvloit, gazing in helpless bewilderment at the scene before him. At last Elizabeth caught sight of him, and--not with any confusion, but only eager to communicate her happiness--exclaimed--
”It is my lover--”
”Your lover!” and he fell back a step, as if he did not know what he was doing.
”My name is Salve Kristiansen, master of the Apollo,” added Salve, without letting her go, and feeling everything around him infinitely small at that moment.
Garvloit turned round and shouted several times from the top of the stairs, raising his voice at each repet.i.tion, ”Andrea! Andrea!” to his wife; and as she did not come immediately, he stumbled as fast as his corpulence would allow him down the stairs, pausing, however, with a vacant look upon the last step.
Madam Garvloit came out with her work in her hand, and asked what the matter was.
”The matter is,” replied her husband, dismally, ”that I am ruined. There is Elizabeth up there sitting with some skipper, G.o.d knows whom, who she says is her lover.”
”Is it possible?”
”Go and see for yourself;” and as his wife hurried past him up the stairs, he added in the same dismal tone--”Who shall we get to look after the house now? we shall never have another like her;” and he sighed profoundly.
When Madam Garvloit appeared at the door, Elizabeth finished her interrupted explanation.
”I have known him ever since I was a little girl,” she said.
It was at once evident to her mistress that there must be a romantic story here; but though br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with curiosity, she deferred her questions until a more convenient season. In the meantime she manifested the most lively sympathy; and after winning Salve's heart by telling him what a treasure Elizabeth had been to her, she begged that as long as he remained in Amsterdam he would come in and out of the house as he pleased.
CHAPTER XX.
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