Nedra Part 38

"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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 d.i.c.kens 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."

"But until we are taken from this island to some place where there is an altar, how can we be married, Hugh?"

"Now, that's something for you to think about. It's almost worried the life out of me."

By this time they had reached the temple. She flung herself carelessly into the hammock, a contented sigh coming from her lips. He leaned against a post near by.

"I am perfectly satisfied here, Hugh," she said tantalizingly. "I've just been thinking that I am safer here."

"Safer?"

"To be sure, dear. If we live here always there can be no one to disturb us, you know. Has it ever occurred to you that some one else may claim you if we go back to the world? And Lord Huntingford may be waiting for me down at the dock, too. I think I shall object to being rescued," she said demurely.

"Well, if he is alive, you can get a divorce from him on the ground of desertion. I can swear that he deserted you on the night of the wreck.

He all but threw you overboard."

"Let me ask a question of you. Suppose we should be rescued and you find Grace alive and praying for your return, loving you more than ever. What would become of her if you told her that you loved me and what would become of me if you married her?"

He gulped down a great lump and the perspiration oozed from his pores.

Her face was troubled and full of earnestness.

"What could I say to her?" He began to pace back and forth beneath the awning. She watched him pityingly, understanding his struggle.

"Now you know, Hugh, why I want to live here forever. I have thought of all this," she said softly, holding out her hand to him. He took it feverishly, gaining courage from its gentle touch.

"It is better that she should mourn for me as dead," he said at last, "than to have me come back to her with love for another in my breast.

Nedra is the safest place in all the world, after all, dearest. I can't bear to think of her waiting for me if she is alive, waiting to--to be my wife. Poor, poor girl!"

"We have been unhappy enough for to-day. Let us forget the world and all its miseries, now that we both love the island well enough to live and die on its soil. Have you thought how indescribably alone we are, perhaps for the rest of our lives? Years and years may be spent here.

Let them all be sweet and good and happy. You know I would be your wife if I could, but I cannot unless Providence takes us by the hands and lifts us to the land where some good man can say: 'Whom G.o.d hath joined, let not man put asunder.'"

The next day after breakfast she took him by the hand and led him to the little knoll down by the hills. Her manner was resolute; there was a charm in it that thrilled him with expectancy.

"If we are not rescued within a year's time, it is hardly probable that we will ever be found, is it?" she asked reflectively.

"They may find us to-morrow and they may never see the sh.o.r.es of this island."

"But as they have not already discovered it, there is certainly some reason. We are in a part of the sea where vessels do not venture, that is evident," she argued persuasively.

"But why do you ask?"

"Because you want me to be your wife," she said, looking him frankly in the eye.

"I can only pray that we may be found," he said wistfully.

"And in case we are never found?"

"I shall probably die an old bachelor," he laughed grimly. For some moments she was in a deep study, evidently questioning the advisability or propriety of giving expression to what was in her mind.

"Are there not a great many methods of observing the marriage ceremony, Hugh? And are they not all sacred?" she asked seriously.

"What are you trying to get at, dear?"

"I may as well tell you what I have been thinking of since last night.

You will not consider me bold and unwomanly, I know, but I want to be your wife. We may never leave this island, but we can be married here."

"Married here!" he exclaimed. "You mean--"

"I mean that the ceremony of these natives can be made as sacred in the eye of G.o.d as any in all the world. Nine-tenths or more of all the marriages in the world are crimes, because man, not G.o.d, welds the bonds. Therefore, I say frankly to you, Hugh, that I will marry you some day according to the custom of these people, as sacred to me as that of any land on earth."