All I have been
expecting miserably killed within me like this!'
Stephen flushed hot with impulse. 'I will not be a doubt to you--
thought of you shall not be a misery to me!' he said. 'We will be
wife and husband before we part for long!'
She hid her face on his shoulder. 'Anything to make SURE!' she
whispered.
'I did not like to propose it immediately,' continued Stephen.
'It seemed to me--it seems to me now--like trying to catch you--a
girl better in the world than I.'
'Not that, indeed! And am I better in worldly station? What's the
use of have beens? We may have been something once; we are nothing
now.'
Then they whispered long and earnestly together; Stephen
hesitatingly proposing this and that plan, Elfride modifying them,
with quick breathings, and hectic flush, and unnaturally bright
eyes. It was two o'clock before an arrangement was finally
concluded.
She then told him to leave her, giving him his light to go up to
his own room. They parted with an agreement not to meet again in
the morning. After his door had been some time closed he heard
her softly gliding into her chamber.
Chapter XI
'Journeys end in lovers meeting.'
Stephen lay watching the Great Bear; Elfride was regarding a
monotonous parallelogram of window blind. Neither slept that
night.
Early the next morning--that is to say, four hours after their
stolen interview, and just as the earliest servant was heard
moving about--Stephen Smith went downstairs, portmanteau in hand.
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