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Philiberta: A Novel

Chapter XIV. 'The Hour of Happiness

Chapter XIV. 'The Hour of Happiness.

He gathered her in his arms and carried her back up the hill a space. Then he sat on a moss-grown rock and held her on his knee.

'Why were you going to leave me?' she asked pitifully.

'What can it matter, darling? I am not going to leave you now.'

'But you said the steamer——'

'Yes, I know. But the steamer must go without me now. I will never lose sight of you again, while I live.'

She laughed happily.

'And yet,' she said, 'if I had not—cast myself at your feet almost, you would have left me without a word.'

For answer to that he kissed her.

'It was very cruel, Edgar.'

'Don't reproach me now, love. I suffered too.'

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'I am glad of that,' she said fiercely. 'It would have been too hard for one to bear it alone.'

'Don't look so angry, love. Come a little further this way, so that I can see you in the moonlight. You look so good, and pretty, and young. Do you know that I am twice your age in years, Berta; and twenty times that in sin and misery?'

'Edgar, let me bear half the sin and misery. I am strong for that.'

'Do you think you will ever be sorry you held me back, Berta?'

'Never while I live,' emphatically. 'Nothing could ever happen that would make me sorry to know you loved me.'

'Say you love me, Berta.'

'I do love you, Edgar.'

'And nothing shall ever come between us—to divide us?'

'Nothing.'

'How soon can you marry me, darling?'

'Why? Do you want to get back to Victoria?'

'No,' with a shiver. 'I shall never go back there now.'

'But, dear, all your property is there, isn't it?'

'That does not matter. I shall not go.'

'Now, that is strange. Where shall we live, then?'

'We will go to America, dearest. That is a big country, where a man may make a fresh start and forget past blunders. You will marry me at once and will go to America.'

'That takes my breath. What a sudden way you have of settling matters!'

'Because matters will not brook delay, my love.'

'But wouldn't it be better to see to things in Victoria first, dear?'

'No.'

'Edgar!' She spoke timidly now.

'Well, darling.'

'There's some bother about money over there, is there not?'

'Yes, dear.'

'Do you know that I have a little money?'

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'Yes. Retlaw told me you were rich.'

'No, no, not rich. You would think it a paltry sum, I dare say. But it might help a little, you know, in the difficulties in Victoria.'

'Darling, you make me feel a very wretched scamp. I do not want to go back to Victoria. I should do no good there. I can't go, and I will not. Yet I shall have to take some of your money, after all.'

'When two people belong to each other,' said Philiberta, 'there is perfect community of goods, you know.'

'That is prettily and nobly said, my pet. But it doesn't alter the fact of a man's being a mean animal to accept the condition of community when the money is all on the woman's side. But look you, love; though I am not a young man now, I have still plenty of strength and capacity for work left in me. With the motive I have now, I feel that I could achieve anything. So I will borrow some of your money, Berta, feeling contemptible all the same while I do it; just enough to land us in America, and then I will win it all back for you with handsome interest.'

She laughed.

'How odd it sounds,' she said; 'the money is all yours, of course, just as if I had never possessed it. But I think you ought to use some of it to settle affairs in Victoria.'

'But I do not think so. Let me have my own way, Berta.'

'Of course I will, always,' she said quickly; 'your way will always be mine

'You will never change, then, dear?'

'No. Why did you say that?'

'Women are changeable sometimes, you know.'

'Are they? Not when they have all that their souls desire, surely.'

He did not need to ask her if she had all that her soul desired. Presently she begged him to take her into the house.

'Mrs. Retlaw has been so good to me to-day, and I want her to know,' she said, looking at him shyly.

'Come along, then.'

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And then they descended the hill, hand in hand; but just before they got to the house he stopped her.

'Kiss me, Berta,' he said. 'I am hungry for kisses and love-words, darling. Tell me, would you suffer very badly if anything were to happen to part us after all?'

'Death would be easier for me,' she answered, quivering with the new fear suggested. 'Oh, Edgar! nothing can—nothing will. Say so, dearest, even if it be not true. I could not bear it—I could not!'

'Hush, love! hush, dear! There is nothing. We will never part while I live.'

Then he straightened himself up to his full height, drew a long breath, and flung back his head with the almost defiant air of one who has made up his mind to an action that not even shame should divert him from.

Mr. Retlaw met them on the threshold.

'I was just going out on commission, to look for you,' he said. 'Mrs. Retlaw promised me my supper if I'd find you. Everything has gone cold,' continued he plaintively. 'You might have had a little consideration for me, Teddy, even if your hard heart would allow you to keep that poor beggar of a guide starving out there with his horses.'

'Oh yea, by-the-bye, I'd forgotten the guide, poor fellow! I'll go and see him now.'

'Here, I say!' cried Mr. Retlaw; 'for heaven's sake, Ted, don't go without something to eat.'

'It's all right, Harry; I am not going at all,' shouted Paget back to him from some distance along the street.

'Well, I'm blest!' ejaculated Mr. Retlaw; 'what next, I wonder?'

'Not hard to guess what next,' said Mrs. Retlaw, coming down just then. 'What do you think of me for a prophetess, my lady Berta?'

Paget returned directly, and was called by Mr. Retlaw a 'doosid inscrutable scamp;' and then, there being no further let of hindrance, they all went to supper.

'Happy?' said Mrs. Retlaw to her friend, in one of those page 106whispering little interludes that women like to make for themselves.

'Beyond measure,' answered Philiberta; 'life brims over with happiness for me now and henceforth.'