smiled evasively, but made no other reply to this remark.
Then came a pause, while, with a growing irritation, Joan watched the long white fingers squeezing at the black wide-awake.
“You had better put your hat on, or you will catch cold,” she suggested, presently.
“Thank you, Miss Haste, it is not what I am liable to – not but what I take it kindly that you should think of my health;” and he carefully replaced the hat upon his head in such a fashion that the long brown hair showed beneath it in a ragged fringe.
“Oh, please don’t thank me,” said Joan rudely, dreading lest her remark should be taken as a sign of encouragement.
Then came another pause, while Samuel searched the heavens with his wandering blue eyes, as though to find inspiration there.
“You are very fond of graves, Miss Haste,” he said at length.
“Yes, Mr. Rock; they are comfortable to sit on – and I don’t doubt very good beds to sleep in,” she added, with a touch of grim humour.
Samuel gave a slight but perceptible shiver. He was a highly strung man, and, his piety notwithstanding, he did not appreciate the allusion. When you wish to make love to a young woman, to say the least of it, it is disagreeable if she begins to talk of that place whither no earthly love can follow.
“You shouldn’t think of such things at your age – you should not indeed, Miss Haste,” he replied; “there are many things you have got to think of before you think of them.”
“What things?” asked Joan rashly.
Again Samuel blushed.
“Well – husbands, and – cradles and such-like,” he answered vaguely.
“Thank you, I prefer graves,” Joan replied with tartness.
By this time it had dawned upon Samuel that he was “getting no forwarder.” For a moment he thought of retreat; then the native determination that underlay his soft voice and timid manner came to his aid.
“Miss Haste – Joan,” he said huskily, “I want to speak to you.”
Joan felt that the hour of trial had come, but still sought a feeble refuge in flippancy.
“You have been doing that for the last five minutes, Mr. Rock,” she said; “and I should like to go home.”
“No, no, not yet – not till you have heard what I have to say.” And he made a quick movement as though to cut off her retreat.
“Well, be quick then,” she answered, in a voice in which vexation and fear struggled for the mastery.
Twice Samuel strove to speak, and twice words failed him, for his agitation was very real. At last they came.
“I love you,” he said, in an intense whisper. “By the God above you, and the dead beneath your feet, I love you, Joan, as you have never been loved before and never will be loved again!”
She threw her head back and looked at him, frightened by his passion. The realities of his declaration were worse than she had anticipated. His thin face was fierce with emotion, his sensitive lips quivered, and the long lithe fingers of his right hand played with his beard as though he were plaiting it. Joan grew seriously alarmed: she had never seen Samuel Rock look like this before.
“I am sorry,” she murmured.
“Don’t be sorry,” he broke in; “why should you be sorry? It is a great thing to be loved as I love you, Joan, a thing that does not often come in the way of a woman, as you will find out before you die. Look here: do you suppose that I have not fought against this? Do you suppose that I wanted to fall into the power of a girl without a sixpence, without even an honest name? I tell you, Joan, I have fought against it and I have prayed against it since you were a chit of sixteen. Chance after chance have I let slip through my fingers for your sake. There was Mrs. Morton yonder, a handsome body as a man need wish for a wife, with six thousand pounds invested and house property into the bargain, who as good as told me that she would marry me, and I gave her the go-by for you. There was the minister’s widow, a lady born, and a holy woman, who would have had me fast enough, and I gave her the go-by for you. I love you, Joan – I tell you that I love you more than land or goods, more than my own soul, more than anything that is. I think of you all day, I dream of you all night. I love you, and I want you, and if I don’t get you then I may as well die for all the world is worth to me.” And he ceased, trembling with passion.
If Joan had been alarmed before, now she was terrified. The man’s earnestness impressed her artistic sense – in a certain rude way there was something fine about it – but it awoke no answer within her heart. His passion repelled her; she had always disliked him, now she loathed him. Swiftly she reviewed the position in her mind, searching a way of escape. She knew well enough that he had not meant to affront her by his references to her poverty and the stain upon her birth – that these truths had broken from him together with that great truth which animated his life; nevertheless, with a woman’s wit putting the rest aside, it was on these unlucky sayings that she pounced in her emergency.
“How, Mr. Rock,” she asked, rising and standing before him, “how can you ask me to marry you, for I suppose that is what you mean, when you throw my poverty – and the rest – in my teeth? I think, Mr. Rock, that you would do well to go back to Mrs. Morton, or the minister’s widow who was born a lady, and to leave me in peace.”
“Oh, don’t be angry with me,” he said, with something like a groan; “you know that I did not mean to offend you. Why should I offend you when I love you so, and want to win you? I wish that I had bitten out my tongue before I said that, but it slipped in with the rest. Will you have me, Joan? Look here: you are the first that ever I said a sweet word to, and that ought to go some way with a woman; and I would make you a good husband. There isn’t much that you shall want for if you marry me, Joan. If any one had told me when I was a youngster that I should live to go begging and craving after a woman in this fashion, I’d have said he lied; but you have put me off, and pushed me aside, and given me the slip, till at length you have worked me up to this, and I can’t live without you – I can’t live without you, that’s the truth.”
“But I am afraid you will have to, Mr. Rock,” said Joan more gently, for the tears which trembled in Samuel’s light blue eyes touched her somewhat; and after all, although he repelled her, it was flattering that any man should value her so highly: “I do not love you.”
His chin dropped upon his breast dejectedly. Presently he looked up and spoke again.
“I did not expect that you would,” he said: “it had been too much luck for a miserable sinner. But be honest with me, Joan – if a woman can – and tell me, do you love anybody else?”
“Not a soul,” she answered, opening her brown eyes wide. “Who is there that I should love here?”
“Ah! that’s it,” he answered, with a sigh of relief: “there is nobody good enough for you in these parts. You are a lady, however you were born, and you want to mate with your own sort. It is no use denying it: I have watched you, and I’ve seen how you look down upon us; and all I’ve got to say is: – Be careful that it does not bring you into trouble. Still, while you don’t love anybody else – and the man you do love had better keep out of my way, curse him! – there is hope for me. Look here, Joan: I don’t want to press you – take time to think it over. I’m in no hurry. I could wait five years
