Way Down East | Page 7

thousand dollars. He came back, waving it in the air to
dry the ink.
"Perhaps you will condescend to explain," Langdon said, as he
pocketed the check.

"Explanations are always bores, my dear boy. There is a little girl who
feels obliged to insist on formalities, not too many. She'll think your
acting as the parson the best joke in the world, but it would not do to
chaff her about it."
"Oh, I see," and Langdon's laugh was not pleasant.
"Exactly. You will have everything ready--white choker, black coat and
all the rest of it, and now, my dear boy, you've got to excuse me as I've
got a lot of work on hand."
They shook hands and Langdon's footsteps were soon echoing down
the corridor.
The foul insinuation that Sanderson had just made about Anna rankled
in his mind. He went to the sideboard and poured himself out a good
stiff drink. After that, his conscience did not trouble him.
The work on account of which he excused himself from Langdon's
society, was apparently not of the most pressing order, for Sanderson
almost immediately started for Boston, turning his steps towards Mrs.
Standish Tremont's.
"Mrs. Tremont was not at home," the man announced at the door, "and
Mrs. Endicott was confined to her room with a bad headache. Should
he take his card to Miss Moore?"
Sanderson assented, feeling that fate was with him.
"My darling," he said, as Anna came in a moment later, and folded her
close in a long embrace. She was paler than when he had last seen her
and there were dark rings under her eyes that hinted at long night vigils.
"Lennox," she said, "do not think me weak, but I am terribly frightened.
It does not seem as if we were doing the right thing by our friends."
"Goosey girl," he said, kissing her, "who was it that said no marriage
ever suited all parties unconcerned?"

She laughed. "I am thinking more of you Lennox, than of myself.
Suppose your father should not forgive you, cut you off without a cent,
and you should have to drudge all your life with mother and me on
your hands! Don't you think you would wish we had never met, or, at
least, that I had thought of these things?"
"Suppose the sky should fall, or the sun should go out, or that I could
stop loving you, or any of the impossible things that could not happen
once in a million years. Aren't you ashamed of yourself to doubt me in
this way? Answer me, miss," he said with mock ferocity.
For answer she laid her cheek against his.--"I am so happy, dear, that I
am almost afraid."
He pressed her tenderly. "And now, darling, for the
conspiracy--Cupid's conspiracy. You write to your mother to-night and
say that you will be home on Wednesday because you will. Then tell
Mrs. Tremont that you have had a wire from her saying you must go
home Friday (I'll see that you do receive such a telegram), and leave
Friday morning by the 9:40. I will keep out of the way, because the
entire Tremont contingent will doubtless see you off. I will then meet
you at one of the stations near Boston. I can't tell you which, till I hear
from my friend, the Reverend John Langdon. He will have everything
arranged."
She looked at him with dilating eyes, her cheeks blanched with fear.
"Anna," he said, almost roughly, "if you have no confidence in me, I
will go out of your life forever."
"Yes, yes, I believe in you," she said. "It isn't that, but it is the first
thing I have ever kept from mother, and I would feel so much more
comfortable if she knew."
"Baby. An' so de ittle baby must tell its muvver ev'yting," he mimicked
her, till she felt ashamed of her good impulse--an impulse which if she
had yielded to, it would have saved her from all the bitterness she was
to know.

"And so you will do as I ask you, darling?"
"Yes."
"Do you promise?"
"Yes," and they sealed the bargain with a kiss.
"Dearest, I must be going. It would never do for Mrs. Tremont to see us
together. I should forget and call you pet names, and then you would be
sent supperless to bed, like the little girls in the story books."
"I suppose you must go," she said, regretfully.
"It will not be for long," and with another kiss he left her.

CHAPTER IV.
THE MOCK MARRIAGE.
"Thus grief still treads upon the heel of pleasure, Married in haste, we
may repent at leisure."--Congreve.
It seemed to Anna when Friday came, that human experience had
nothing further to offer in the way of mental