Dora Thorne [58]
"Then you must never tell her," he said--"leave that for me until I return. I shall have money then, and perhaps the command of a fine vessel. She will not refuse me when she knows how dearly I love you, and even should your father--the father you tell of--come home, you will be true to me, Beatrice, will you not?"
"Yes, I will be true," she replied--and, to do her justice, she meant it at the time. Her father's return seemed vague and uncertain; it might take place in ten or twenty years--it might never be. Hugh offered her freedom and liberty in two years.
"If others should seek your love," he said, "should praise your beauty, and offer you rank or wealth, you will say to yourself that you will be true to Hugh?"
"Yes," she said, firmly, "I will do so."
"Two years will soon pass away," said he. "Ah, Beatrice," he continued, "I shall leave you next Thursday; give me all the hours you can. Once away from you, all time will seem to me a long, dark night."
It so happened that the farmer and his men were at work in a field quite on the other side of Knutsford. Dora and Lillian were intent, the one upon a box of books newly arrived, the other upon a picture; so Beatrice had every day many hours at her disposal. She spent them all with Hugh, whose love seemed to increase with every moment.
Hugh was to leave Seabay on Thursday, and on Wednesday evening he lingered by her side as though he could not part with her. To do Hugh Fernely justice, he loved Beatrice for herself. Had she been a penniless beggar he would have loved her just the same. The only dark cloud in his sky was the knowledge that she was far above him. Still, he argued to himself, the story she told of her father was an impossible one. He did not believe that Ronald Earle would ever take his daughters home--he did not quite know what to think, but he had no fear on that score.
On the Wednesday evening they wandered down the cliff and sat upon the shore, watching the sun set over the waters. Hugh took from his pocket a little morocco case and placed it in Beatrice's hands. She opened it, and cried out with admiration; there lay the most exquisite ring she had ever seen, of pure pale gold, delicately and elaborately chased, and set with three gleaming opals of rare beauty.
"Look at the motto inside," said Hugh.
She held the ring in her dainty white fingers, and read: "Until death parts us."
"Oh, Hugh," she cried, that word again?" I dread it; why is it always coming before me?"
He smiled at her fears, and asked her to let him place the ring upon her finger.
"In two years," he said, "I shall place a plain gold ring on this beautiful hand. Until then wear this, Beatrice, for my sake; it is our betrothal ring."
"It shall not leave my finger," she said. "Mamma will not notice it, and every one else will think she has given it to me herself."
"And now," said Hugh, "promise me once more, Beatrice, you will be true to me--you will wait for me--that when I return you will let me claim you as my own?"
"I do promise," she said, looking at the sun shining on the opals.
Beatrice never forgot the hour that followed. Proud, impetuous, and imperial as she was, the young man's love and sorrow touched her as nothing had ever done. The sunbeams died away in the west, the glorious mass of tinted clouds fell like a veil over the evening sky, the waves came in rapidly, breaking into sheets of white, creamy foam in the gathering darkness, but still he could not leave her.
"I must go, Hugh," said Beatrice, at length; "mamma will miss me."
She never forgot the wistful eyes lingering upon her face.
"Once more, only once more," he said. "Beatrice, my love, when I return you will be my wife?"
"Yes," she replied, startled alike by his grief and his love.
"Never be false to me," he continued. "If you were--"
"What then?" she asked, with a smile, as he paused.
"I should either kill myself or you," he replied, "perhaps both. Do not make me say such terrible things. It could not be. The sun may fall from the