Page:The Indian Drum (1917 original).pdf/240

222 wait any longer, you and I. Ben's gone, never to come back. I was sure of that by what you wrote me, so this time when I started to you I brought with me—this."

He felt in his pocket and brought out a ring of plain gold; he held it before her so that she could see within it her own initials and his and a blank left for the date. Her gaze went from it for an instant to the box where he had put back the other ring—Alan's mother's. Feeling for her long ago gazing thus, as she must have, at that ring, held her for a moment. Was it because of that that Constance found herself cold now?

"You mean you want me to marry you—at once, Henry?"

He drew her to him powerfully; she felt him warm, almost rough with passions. Since that day when, in Alan Conrad's presence, he had grasped and kissed her, she had not let him "realize" their engagement, as he had put it.

"Why not?" he turned her face up to his now. "Your mother's here; your father will follow soon; or, if you will, we'll run away—Constance! You've kept me off so long! You don't believe there's anything against me, dear? Do you? Do you?

"No; no! Of course not!"

"Then we're going to be married.... We're going to be married, aren't we? Aren't we, Constance?"

"Yes; yes, of course."

"Right away, we'll have it then; up here; now!"

"No; not now, Henry. Not up here!"

"Not here? Why not?"

She could give no answer. He held her and com-