“Are you walking in your sleep?” he asked, in a curious tone.
“N-no; I am going to spend the night with a friend—a girl I know. I am very fond of her. She lives across the meadows.”
“Indeed; shall I see you there before I go to the village?” and he politely threw away his cigar.
Nina hesitated. This was not quite what she wished, and he went on: “Perhaps you do not care for me to see where you are going?”
“No, I don’t,” she said, in a low voice.
“I suppose you are planning to come back in the morning and take the train with me?” he asked, in a livelier way.
“Perhaps I had better not,” she said, evasively.
“By Jove! I believe she’s running away,” he inwardly exclaimed. Outwardly he was cool. “Did you tell Mrs. Danvers about your ardent wish to see this friend?”
“No,” she murmured.
“You must think a heap of her to be rambling off this time of night to see her,” he went on. “Pray do not let me detain you.”
The girl swung her foot to and fro as if feeling for the first stepping-stone; and yet she probably knew perfectly well where it was. Then she said, with a queer catch in her voice, “It looks blacker over there.”
She had been brought up in the country. She was no more afraid of the darkness than he was, but he said, agreeably, “You want me to go with you?”
“N-not all the way. I don’t want you to see where I go.”
There was something peculiar in her voice, something peculiar in her manner, and the puzzled man knit his brows. There had not been quite enough consternation when she discovered him. She was acting, but acting badly. He would edge up on the stage a bit, and he went nearer and peered at her downcast head.
What he saw decided and enlightened him; for he suddenly choked back a laugh, and retreated into the deeper gloom of the tree, from whence a voice presently issued in pretended severity: “Nina, why did you marry me to-day?”
Now the girl was happy. She left the stepping-stone on which she had placed both her small feet and resumed her footing on dry ground. “I married you because I promised to do so. You have been very good to me ever since I was a little child. I am grateful to you, and if there is any profit to you in my marriage, I am willing for you to have it.”
“Profit,” he muttered to himself. “Good heavens, Miss Parrot, what do you mean? This is something you have learned by rote.” However, he kept his wonder to himself, and said aloud and still more sternly:
“Having married me, why are you running away?”
“I am running away because I am not pleased with you,” she said, bravely and glibly. “You treat me as if I were a baby. I am grown up, and am entitled to some respect and consideration, particularly now that I am your wife. I wish to be consulted about things. When I get on board the Merrimac I do not wish to be told I must do this and I must do that.”
He did not speak for a minute. She supposed that he was trying to subdue his wrath, but he was going over a few sentences to himself in a puzzled fashion. “What is that fellow’s name—Jerrold, is it?—says, ‘While they’re maids they’re mild as milk. Make ’em wives and they set their backs against their marriage certificates and defy you.’ ”
“I am no better than a puppet,” said the girl excitedly.
“Puppet, that’s good!” said the seafaring man, softly, “and glory to Cupid, she’s getting stirred up. I dare say I do boss her.”
“You have stated your grievance,” he said, in a low growl; “what redress do you ask?”
“I want you to—to let me do as I like about—about going or staying with you.”
“You want to frighten me out of my senses to keep me from making love to you, little witch,” he reflected, “and you’re using this girl as a screen. I see,” he said aloud, “your present most earnest desire is to go and visit this girl you love so much, and let me go away without you. Then after I have had a trip to England and back, which will give me ample time to meditate on the folly of my ways, I may come and get you.”
She did not reply for a minute. “Seems to be having some difficulty with her organs of speech,” soliloquised the man behind the tree. “Just for contrariness, I’ll check. Have your own way,” he said, with well-assumed surliness. “I wouldn’t take you with me to-morrow for a thousand pounds.”
The girl was terrified. She had gone too far. She had roused the ugly, black, Spanish temper of whose existence she was well aware, but of which she had never seen an exhibition. “Esteban,” she said, piteously, “I don’t want to hurt your feelings; if you would only let me do a little more as I want to.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this before?” he uttered, in a sepulchral voice; “why did you wait to blight our marriage day?”
“I—I couldn’t get courage,” she stammered. “I—I am a little frightened of you.”
The night air was so clear that he could hear every one of her fluttering whispers, yet he pretended that he had not caught them, and launched into a raging philippic against the ingratitude of women in general.
It accomplished her confusion. She had plainly overstepped the limit set around his forbearance, and, dropping her bag on the grass, she put both hands up to her eyes.
She was crying—the darling—and his heart was bleeding for her, but he wished to find out the particulars of this night excursion. “You have deceived me—you pretended that you would go away with me in the morning.”
“So I am going,” she cried, desperately. “I am only in fun.”
He paused in his ravings. “In fun—”
“Yes; I am only making believe to go to see that girl. I watched you come down here. I am not going to leave you, ’Steban, really. Look in that bag—there isn’t even a toothbrush in it. It’s only stuffed with paper. I am sick of this quiet place. I will be good if you will take me to-morrow.”
“Never—false, deceitful one!” he began, in tones made hollow by a hand placed over his mouth, but his tones were too hollow, too mournful. He was not a first-class actor, and she was too sharp to be deceived any longer.
She dropped her hands from her eyes. She could not see him, but she could plainly hear that, being now discovered, he had given way to his torments of suppressed laughter.
“You mean, mean thing!” she cried, wrathfully; then she wheeled suddenly, threw the bag in his direction, and rushed off through the darkness.
He laughed till the tears came to his eyes, then he groped after the bag. It was as she had said, stuffed with paper. “Poor little soul,” he muttered, “I would have comforted her if she had stayed. She wanted to show me that she was going to take command in this matrimonial alliance, but she didn’t come out well from her first battle. Deserted her colours and ran.”
CHAPTER IV.
RUBICON MEADOWS ARE LEFT BEHIND.
With a face as pale as the handkerchief pressed against it, Nina stood gazing into a corner of the waiting-room in the diminutive railway station of Rubicon Meadows.
Mrs. Danvers had broken down. She was in a pitiable state of confusion, and Mr. Danvers, with his round face in a snarl, was trying to comfort her.
“What hash these women are made of!” grumbled Captain Fordyce to himself. “She wanted Nina