Christian Science -- Fiction; People with disabilities -- Fiction
They looked at each other for a few moments, the man and the woman, and
the sound of the brook came faintly to their ears. But the scent of the
garden was all about them and there was no need of speech.
Slowly Carolina smiled, and he reached up his hand to hers and took it
and said:
"You know me?" and she said:
"Yes."
"And I know you," he said, "for I have felt ever since that first night
that you would come."
"That first night?" she breathed.
"At the opera," he said.
Then he drew back strangely and looked around at the garden and frowned,
as if it had been to blame for the words he had spoken when he had not
meant to speak. But, although Carolina saw the look and the frown, she
only smiled and breathed a great sigh of content and looked at the
garden happily.
Then he turned to her again and said:
"Did you know that you and I are related?" And he saw with a great lift
of the heart that she turned pale before answering, so to spare her he
went on, hurriedly:
"I have been talking to Mrs. Winchester, and we find that the La Granges
and Lees are kin. You and I are about twelfth cousins, according to
Miss Sallie Yancey."
"So we are of the same blood," said Carolina, gently. Then she added:
"I am glad."
"And so am I,--more glad than I can say, for it will give me the
opportunity to be of service to you--in a way I could not--perhaps--if
we were not kin."
Carolina looked at him inquiringly, but he had turned his head away, and
again a frown wrinkled his smooth, brown forehead. Carolina looked at
him eagerly. He was a man to fill any woman’s eye,--tall, lean, lithe,
and commanding, with long brown fingers which were closed nervously upon
the brim of his soft black hat. His nose was straight, his lips
sensitive yet strong, and his eyes had a way of making most women sigh
without ever knowing why. Moultrie La Grange was said to have "a way
with him" which men never understood, but which women knew, and knew to
their sorrow, for everywhere it was whispered that "Moultrie would never
marry, since--" and here the whispers became nods and half-uttered words
and mysterious signs which South Carolinians understood, but which
mystified Mrs. Winchester, and Carolina did not happen to hear the
subject discussed.
"You have come down here," said Moultrie, "to restore Guildford."
"Yes," said Carolina, seeing that he paused for a reply.
"I wish that I could restore Sunnymede. Our place joins yours."
"It does?" cried Carolina. "Then why don’t you?"
He looked at her sharply. Was she making fun of him?
"You are a rich young lady. I am a poor man. Can I rebuild Sunnymede
with these?" He held out two fine, strong, symmetrical hands.
Carolina looked at them appreciatively before she answered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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