Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17.djvu/382

374 you, whether I like or not; engage my honor in this foolish business, and if you do that, I really do think you will have me in spite of them all. But there,—la!—am I worth all this trouble?"

Griffith did not share this chilling doubt. He poured forth his gratitude, and then told her he had got his mother's ring in his pocket; "I meant to ask you to wear it," said he.

"And why didn't you?"

"Because you became an heiress all of a sudden."

"Well, what signifies which of us has the dross, so that there is enough for both?"

"That is true," said Griffith, approving his own sentiment, but not recognizing his own words. "Here's my mother's ring, on my little finger, sweet mistress. But I must ask you to draw it off, for I have but one hand."

Kate made a wry face, "Well, that is my fault," said she, "or I would not take it from you so."

She drew off his ring, and put it on her finger. Then she gave him her largest ring, and had to put it on his little finger for him.

"You are making a very forward girl of me," said she, pouting exquisitely.

He kissed her hand while she was doing it.

"Don't you be so silly," said she; "and, you horrid creature, how you smell of wine! The bullet, please."

"The bullet!" exclaimed Griffith. "What bullet?"

"The bullet. The one you were wounded with for my sake. I am told you put it in your pocket; and I see something bulge in your waistcoat. That bullet belongs to me now."

"I think you are a witch," said he. "I do carry it about next my heart. Take it out of my waistcoat, if you will be so good."

She blushed and declined, and, with the refusal on her very lips, fished it out with her taper fingers. She eyed it with a sort of tender horror. The sight of it made her feel faint a moment. She told him so, and that she would keep it to her dying day. Presently her delicate finger found something was written on it. She did not ask him what it was, but withdrew, and examined it by her candle. Griffith had engraved it with these words:—

He looked through the window, and saw her examine it by the candle. As she read the inscription, her face, glorified by the light, assumed a celestial tenderness he had never seen it wear before.

She came back and leaned eloquently out as if she would fly to him. "O Griffith, Griffith!" she murmured, and somehow or other their lips met, in spite of all the difficulties, and grew together in a long and tender embrace.

It was the first time she had ever given him more than her hand to kiss, and the rapture repaid him for all.

But as soon as she had made this great advance, virginal instinct suggested a proportionate retreat.

"You must go to bed," she said, austerely; "you will catch your death of cold out here."

He remonstrated: she insisted. He held out: she smiled sweetly in his face, and shut the window in it pretty sharply, and disappeared. He went disconsolately down his ivy ladder. As soon as he was at the bottom, she opened the window again, and asked him, demurely, if he would do something to oblige her.

He replied like a lover; he was ready to be cut in pieces, drawn asunder with wild horses, and so on.

"O, I know you would do anything stupid for me," said she; "but will you do something clever for a poor girl that is in a fright at what she is going to do for you?"

"Give your orders, mistress," said Griffith, "and don't talk of me obliging you. I feel quite ashamed to hear you talk so,—to-night especially."

"Well, then," said Kate, "first and foremost, I want you to throw yourself on Father Francis's neck."

"I'll throw myself on Father