Part 27 (2/2)
”Don't try. Let me guess, and you tell me if I'm right.”
Miss Martyn did not answer in words, only bowed her head, and he continued, with a glance at the paper lying on the table:
”You once received what you considered a very impertinent letter from me?”
”I don't think impertinent is the right term,” replied Selina, not raising her eyes.
”Then, my dear lady, why did you not let me have an answer?”
”Oh, Edgar, I only discovered it a few minutes before you came,” and casting aside all reserve, she told him of the unfortunate combination of the damp Christmas morning and the drop of gum that had so disastrously separated them.
Long before the recital was complete her visitor had s.h.i.+fted his chair again and again until it was close beside her own.
”You poor, dear woman!” he exclaimed, as his arm stole quietly round her waist, and Miss Martyn suffered it to remain there.
”Why did you hide your letter inside, Edgar?” she asked quietly.
”I suppose because I didn't want to startle you, and thought you should see the verses first. May I see it now?” he continued. ”It's so long since I wrote it, you see.”
”Yes, you may see it,” replied Selina, without raising her eyes; ”but it's all pa.s.sed now,” with another little sigh.
His disengaged hand had secured the letter, and hastily glancing over the writing, he exclaimed with sudden fervour:
[Sidenote: ”I'm Waiting!”]
”No, Selina! Every word I wrote then I mean to-day. When I left England years ago it was with your image in my heart, and with the determination that when I was rich I would come back and try my luck again. And in my heart you, and you alone, have reigned ever since. And when after long years I heard from my cousin that you might still be found at Seaton Lodge, you don't know what that meant to me. It made a boy of me again.
It blotted out all the years that have divided us, and here I am waiting for my answer.”
”Oh, Edgar, we mustn't be silly. Remember, we're no longer boy and girl.”
”I remember nothing of the kind. All I remember is that it's Christmas Day, that I've asked you a question, and that I am waiting for the answer you would have given me years ago but for the damp and a drop of gum. You know what it would have been then; give me it now. Dearest, I'm waiting.”
And Selina Martyn gave her answer, an all-sufficient one to both.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SELINA MARTYN GAVE HER ANSWER.]
[Sidenote: Young people, read and take warning by this awful example.]
Whilst Waiting for the Motor
BY
MADELINE OYLER
Her name was Isabel, and she really was a very nice, good little girl--when she remembered. But you can't always remember, you know; you wouldn't be a little girl if you could, and this happened on one of those days when she didn't remember.
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