New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
He met her intent look; she had rarely seen his blithe eyes more solemn
than now.
"Haven't you guessed by this time?" he said.
"Perhaps I have," she answered. Her tone was a low murmur; she had
averted her eyes from his, and would have withdrawn from him her hand,
had not the clasp of his own softly rebelled against this act. Her
cheeks had flushed almost crimson. "Go on," she persisted. "Tell me if I
am right."
"I think you are, Claire; I think you have guessed it, at last." The
carriage had just entered the big gateway of the ferry; wheels and hoofs
took a new sound as they struck the planks of the wharf. "Don't you
remember that night at the Island, a little while after our engagement,
when you told me that it would give you such joy to regain your father's
body and to have it decently buried, in a Christian way?"
"Yes, Herbert ... I remember." She spoke the words so faintly that he
scarcely heard them.
"Well, Claire, I made you a promise, then, and I recollected the
promise."
"But _I_ forgot it!" she cried, throwing both arms about his neck, for
an instant, and kissing his cheek. Immediately afterward she burst into
tears. "Oh, Herbert, you remembered and I forgot! How wicked of me! I
let other things--things that were trifles and vanities--drive it from
my mind! Poor, dear, dead Father! He would never have done that to me!
He loved me too well--far too well!"
The tears were rushing down her face, and her frame was in a miserable
tremor. Already he had caught both her hands, and was firmly pressing
them while he bent toward her, and while she leaned in a relaxed posture
against the back of the carriage. He thought her repentance as exquisite
as it was needless; he held it as only a fresh proof of her sweet,
refined spirit. It brought the mist into his sight, and made his voice
throb very unwontedly, to see her weep and tremble thus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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