Part 5 (2/2)
”I am glad that you are glad.”
”And I am so sorry for what I said last night.”
”What was it you said that is the particular occasion of your sorrow?”
She drew closer to his side. When she spoke it was as if, in some strange way, she was afraid.
”I am sorry that I said that if luck went against you to-day things would have to be over between us. I don't know what made me say it. I did not mean it. I thought of it all night; I have been thinking of it all day. I don't think that, whatever happens, I could ever find it in my heart to send you away.”
”I a.s.sure you, lady, that I should not go unless you sent me!”
”Cyril!” She pressed his arm. Her voice sank lower. She almost whispered in his ear, while her eyes looked towards the Worthing lights. ”I think that perhaps it would be better if we were to get married as soon as we can--better for both of us.”
Turning, he gripped her arms with both his hands.
”Do you mean it?”
”I do; if you do the great things of which you talk or if you don't.
If you don't there is my little fortune, with which we must start afresh, both of us together, either on this side of the world or on the other, whichever you may choose.”
”Daisy!” His voice vibrated with sudden pa.s.sion. ”Will you come with me to the other side of the world in any case?”
”What--even if you make your fortune?”
”Yes; even if I make my fortune!”
She looked at him with that something on her face which is the best thing that a man can see. And tears came into her eyes. And she said to him, in the words which have been ringing down the ages--
”Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy G.o.d, my G.o.d; where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me!”
It may be that the words savoured to him of exaggeration; at any rate, he turned away, as if something choked his utterance. She, too, was still.
”I suppose you don't want a grand wedding.”
”I want a wedding, that's all I want. I don't care what sort of a wedding it is so long as it's a wedding. And”--again her voice sank, and again she drew closer to his side--”I don't want to have to wait for it too long.”
”Will you be ready to marry me within a month?”
”I will.”
”Then within a month we will be married.”
They were silent. His thoughts, in a dazed sort of fas.h.i.+on, travelled to the diamonds which were in somebody else's Gladstone bag. Her thoughts wandered through Elysian fields. It is possible that she imagined--as one is apt to do--that his thoughts were there likewise.
All at once she said something which brought him back from what seemed to be a waking dream. She felt him start.
”Come with me, and let's tell Charlie.”
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