Adventure stories; Islands -- Fiction; Love stories; Shipwrecks -- Fiction
"Good-night," she whispered. He pulled the curtain aside and she slowly
entered the room. For an hour afterward he lay awake, wondering what
manner of love it was he had given to Grace Vernon. It was not
like this.
It was barely daylight when he arose from his couch, dressed and started
for a brisk walk over the hills. His ramble was a long one and the
village was astir when he came through the woodland, some distance from
the temple. Expecting to find Tennys waiting for him, he hastened to
their abode. She evidently had not arisen, so, with a tinge of
disappointment, he went to his room. Then he heard her, with her women,
taking her morning plunge in the pool. The half hour before she made her
appearance seemed a day to him. They met in the hallway, he glad and
expectant, she shy and diffident. The red that burned in her cheeks
turned to white when he kissed her, and her eyelids fell tremblingly
with the proof positive that she had not dreamed the exquisite story of
the night before.
Later in the morning they called on the king, and that individual
promptly prostrated himself. They found the new bride repairing a
section of the king's palace that had been blown down by a recent
hurricane. Before the white people left, Tennys had the satisfaction
and Hugh the amusement of seeing the big chief repairing the rent and
the bride taking a rest.
"I've been thinking pretty hard this morning, dear," he said as they
walked back to the temple, "especially when I was alone in the forest."
"Can't you think unless you are alone?" she asked, smiling.
"We all think differently sometimes when we are alone, you know. I was
just thinking what a dickens of a position we are in for a pair
of lovers."
"It seems to me that it is ideal."
"But where is the minister or magistrate?"
"What have they to do with it?"
"Everything, I should say. We can't get married without one or the
other," he blurted out. She stopped stockstill with a gasp.
"Get married? Why--why, we have said nothing of getting married."
"And that's just why I am speaking of it now. I want you to be my wife,
Tennys. Will you be my wife, dear?" he asked nervously.
"How absurd, Hugh. We may be on this island forever, and how are we to
be married here? Besides, I had not thought of it."
"But you must think of it. I can't do all the thinking."
"Lord Huntingford may not be dead," she said, turning pale with the
possibility.
"I can swear that he is. He was one of the first to perish. I don't
believe you know what love is even now, or you would answer my
question."
"Don't be so petulant, please. It is a serious matter to consider, as
well as an absurd one, situated as we are. Now, if I should say that I
will be your wife, what then?"
"But you haven't said it," he persisted.
"Hugh, dear, I would become your wife to-day, to-morrow--any time, if it
were possible."
"That's what I wanted you to say."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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