Page:The Mystery of the Sea.djvu/184

170 the last day and a half. She saw the change in me, and with poetic feeling put in picturesque form her evident concern:

"Archie, what troubles you? your face is like a cloud passing over a cornfield!"

"I am anxious about you" I said. "In the perfection of happiness which you have given me, I forgot for the moment some things that are troubling me." With infinite gentleness, and with that sweet tenderness which is the sympathetic facet of love, she laid her hand on mine and said:

"Tell me what troubles you. I have a right to know now, have I not?" For answer I raised her hand and kissed it; then holding it in mine I went on:

"At the same time that I learned about you, I heard of some other things which have caused me much anxiety. You will help to put me at ease, won't you?"

"Anything you like I shall do. I am all yours now!"

"Thank you, my darling, thank you!" was all I could say; her sweet surrender of herself overwhelmed me. "But I shall tell you later; in the meantime tell me all about yourself, for that is a part of what I wait for." So she spoke:

"We are living, Mrs. Jack and I, in an old Castle some miles back in the country from here. First I must tell you that Mrs. Jack is my old nurse. Her husband had been a workman of my father's in his pioneer days. When Dad made his own pile he took care of Jack—Jack Dempsey his name was, but we never called him anything but Jack. His wife was Mrs. Jack then, and has been so ever since to me. When mother died, Mrs. Jack, who had lost her husband a little while before, came to take care of me. Then when father died she took care of everything; and has been like a mother to me ever since. As I dare say you have noticed, she has never got over the deferen-