CHAPTER XLIX.

BROODING THOUGHTS.

"What are you thinking of, Richard, with your eyes wandering out on the water and your mouth so set?" asked the girl, after some moments of silence that began to trouble her.

Storms started as if a shot had passed him.

"Thinking of--Why nothing that should trouble you."

"But you don't care to talk, and me sitting by!"

"What is the difference, so long as you were in my mind? I was thinking that there might as well be an end of this. We could have the matter over, and no noise about it, you know."

Judith's heart made a great leap.

"Were you thinking of that, Richard? Oh, tell me!"

She was sitting on the floor, leaning her elbow on the bench, where Storms had flung himself with an utter disregard to her comfort. Now she leaned forward till her head rested on his bosom, and she clasped him fondly with her firm, white arms.

"Were you thinking of that now, really, darling?"

Storms did not actually push her away; but he turned over with his face to the wall, muttering:

"Don't bother. What else should it be?"

"Then I must be getting ready, you know. The mistress must have warning," said the girl, too happy for resentment.

"The mistress! There it is. You cannot expect me to take a wife from the bar-room. No, no! We must manage it in some other way."

Judith drew a deep breath.

"I will do anything you tell me--anything at all," she said. "Only let me make sure that you are as happy as I am."

"Happy! Of course I'm happy. Why not?" answered the young man. "Now, you'd better be going home. It is getting late."

Judith arose, drew her scarlet sacque closer around her, pulled the jaunty little hat over her eyes, and stood in the moonlight waiting for her lover. He arose heavily, and dropping both clasped hands between his knees, sat in the shadow, regarding her with sullen interest. She could not see his face, but there was a glitter of his eyes that pierced the shadows with sinister brightness. The picture of the girl was so vivid, framed in the old doorway, with that deep background of water over which the moonlight seemed to leap, leaving that in darkness, and herself flooded in light, so fearfully vivid, that the man whom she hoped to marry could never afterward sweep it from his brain.

"Come," she said, "I'm ready."

"And so am I," he answered, starting up and dashing his hands apart, as if a serpent had entangled them against his will. "What are you waiting for?"

"What have I been long and long waiting for?" said the girl; "but it has come at last. Oh, Richard, say that it has come at last."

"Yes, it has come at last," broke forth the man, almost savagely. "You would have it so. Remember, you would--"

"Why, how cross you are. Was it I that first made love?"

"You? Yes. It always is the woman."

"Oh, Richard, dear--how you love to torment me!"

The girl took his arm, as she said this, and held to it caressingly, with both hands, while her eyes, half-beaming, half-tearful, sought in his face some contradiction of his savage mood.

"Is the torment all on one side?" he muttered, enduring her caressing touch with surly impatience.

"There, Dick, only say for once that you are happy."

"Oh, wonderfully happy. There, now, let us walk faster."

They did walk on; now in the moonlight, now in deep shadow, she leaning upon him with fond dependence, which he appeared to recognize, though few words were spoken between them.

Once, as they passed a sheltered copse half-way between the lake and Jessup's cottage, both saw the figure of a man retreating from the path, and knew that he was regarding them from under covert. Then Storms did meet the girl's bright glance, and they both laughed with subdued merriment.

"He is following us. I hear his step in the undergrowth," whispered Judith, and Storms answered back:

"Give him plenty of time."

When they reached Jessup's cottage, the little building was quite dark, except the faint gleam of a night-lamp in the sick man's room. At the gate they both paused. Judith turned with her face to the moonlight, and offered her lips for the kiss Storms bent lovingly to give her. Then they stood together, hand-in-hand, as if reluctant to part for a minute, and he went away, looking back now and then, as if anxious for her safety, while she stood by the gate watching him.

When the young man was quite gone, Judith opened the gate, without even a click of the latch, and stole like a thief toward the porch, which was so laden with ivy and jasmines that no one could see her when once in its shelter. Still she shrunk back, and dragged the foliage over her, when the gamekeeper came out from his concealment, and walked back and forth before the cottage. At last his steps receded, and, peering through the ivy, Judith saw him move away toward the lake. Then she stole out of the porch, crept with bent form to the gate, and darted in a contrary direction with the speed of a lapwing. Somewhat later, the girl stole through the back yard of the inn, tried her key in the kitchen door, and crept up to her room in the garret, where she carefully put away her outer garments, and went to bed so passionately happy that she lay awake all night with both hands folded over her bosom, and the name of Richard Storms trembling now and then up from her heart.