Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/292

282 She might as well have appealed to the gnarled gumtree beside her.

"What of myself, madam?" was the almost insolent reply. "A man must think of that sometimes. What should I have? Nothing. I give away all my property to a useless set of folk who would, to-morrow, laugh at me for my pains. No, madam. If assured of the position, in every respect, your late husband occupied, I should be willing to yield all you ask; but, be sure, Mrs. Courtenay, on no other conditions. Dear madam, good lady," he continued, in more softened tones, "there is a soft side to my nature. I am devotedly attached to yourself. I sorrow deeply, I assure you, for your bereaved condition. Let me try to fill, humbly, the good doctor's place. I can manage; I can command. This vast property so richly improved would be the envy of all beholders. You could live mostly in town, where I should be only when the House sits. You can enjoy. yourself, and grace society," he added, with a grim smile, "with the sense of having made this little world of ours and, may I add, plain John Elms himself, for ever happy."

The Sergeant bent on his knee in the moonlight, and sought to take the lady's hand. Mrs. Courtenay withdrew it hurriedly. She rose from her seat, and turned towards the house.

"Mr. Elms," she said, with decision, "that, I say, can never be. You must not humiliate yourself and me. I could never, for any consideration, marry again."

The man sprang to his feet. He, the dictator of Mimosa Vale, had humbled himself in vain! had been spurned! Seizing the document that lay on the bench, he passionately tore it into a dozen pieces and cast them to the winds.

"Madam," he almost shouted, "you will rue this