An Old Man's Darling

She was silent, resting her head against his supporting arm, and passing her small hand wearily over her brow as if to dispel some gathering mist from her sight. The solemn, mystical sound of the foam-capped waves breaking silently on the shore seemed strangely pathetic to her ears. They had never sounded so sad before.

"Darling, of what are you thinking?" he asked, gently.

She started and shivered, lifting her white face up to his with a look that nearly broke his heart, it was so pitifully pathetic. He had never seen anything but happiness on that beautiful face. Why had he won her love only to plant the thorns of sorrow in that fond and trusting heart?

"Leslie, dear," she said, in a strangely altered voice, "do you believe in presentiments?"

He started at the words.

"Bonnibel," he answered, "I hardly know whether I do or not. It would be very superstitious to believe in such things, would it not? And yet may not a merciful Providence sometimes vouchsafe us warnings of things, as the Scotch say, 'beyond our ken'? My darling, why did you ask me that strange question?"

He took her little trembling hand in his and looked searchingly into her face.

"Leslie," she said, "I have such a strange feeling. Perhaps you will laugh at it. I should have laughed at it myself two hours ago."

"Tell me, dear," he pleaded; "I will not even smile."

She looked up with something like awe shining in her large eyes.

"Leslie, I can hardly find words to put this strong presentiment in; but I feel that if we part now—like this—that before you win the honors you covet, some terrible bar of fate will come between us and sunder us so widely that we shall never meet again."

The low, impressive words fell heavily on his heart, chilling it like ice. How strangely they sounded from his little Bonnibel, who but an hour ago was as gay as a butterfly in the sunshine. Now the very elements of tragedy were in her voice and face. A jealous pang struck him to the heart.

"Bonnibel," he said, quietly, "do you mean that your uncle would marry you to someone else before I came back to claim you?"

"I do not know," she said; "I hardly think my feeling was as clearly defined as that. It was a dim, intangible something I could not fathom, and took no peculiar shape. But he might try to do that, for, oh, Leslie! Uncle Francis is terribly angry with us both."

"I am quite aware of that, my dearest," he answered, bitterly. "But, Bonnibel, this presentiment of yours troubles me. Perhaps I am foolish, but I have always been a half-way believer in these things."

"Leslie, I believe it firmly," she said, choking back a sob that rose in her throat; "Uncle Francis will dig some impassable gulf between us. When we part to-night, it will be forever."

Hiding her face on his shoulder she sobbed aloud. Poor little bonny bird! she had been soaring in the blue ether, her fair plumage bathed in sunshine all her life. Now her bright wings were clipped, and she walked in the shadow.

"My love has only brought you sorrow," he said, regretfully.

"No, no; you must not think so," she answered, earnestly. "It seems to me, Leslie, that I have never fully lived until this summer, when I met and loved you. Life has seemed to have a fuller, deeper meaning; the flowers have been sweeter, the sunshine fairer, the sound of the sea has seemed to have a voice that spake to me of happiness. If you had gone away from me with your love untold I should have missed something from my life forever. You do not guess what a wealth of love is in my heart, Leslie. It is not your love that brings me sorrow; it is the dreadful, dreadful parting with you!"

He pressed her hand in silence. A terrible temptation had come to him. He was struggling mutely against it, trying to fight it down in all honor. But love and jealousy fought madly against white-handed honor.

"If you leave her now, in her beauty and youth," whispered jealousy, "some other man will see that she is fair. She will forget you and wed another."

"Make her your own now," whispered love.

He was young and ardent; the warm blood of the South, whose flame burns so hotly, fired his veins. He looked at her sitting there so angelically fair in the beautiful moonlight, and knew that he should never love another as he loved this beautiful, innocent child. If she were lost to his future life what profit could he have in wealth and fame? Love and jealousy conquered.

He drew her to his side with a passionate clasp, longing to hold her there forever.

"Bonnibel," he whispered, "do not be frightened at what I am going to say. I am afraid that they will marry you to some other while I am gone away. Your uncle may persuade you against your will, may even bring force to bear with you. But there is one way in which we can bridge any gulf they may dig between us, darling. Will you marry me secretly to-night? I can leave you more willingly, then, knowing that no power can keep us apart when I come to claim you."

"Marry you to-night?" gasped the child. "How can I do that, Leslie?"

"Nothing easier, darling. Only a mile and a half from here is the little fishing village of Brandon. We can take your little skiff and go down, be married by the Methodist minister there, and return in a few hours, and then I can leave you without being haunted by a terrible foreboding of losing you forever. They will think you are asleep in your room at home, and no one will miss you or be the wiser for the precious little secret that we will keep sacredly until I come to claim my little wife. Bonnibel, will you make this great sacrifice for love? It will make our future happiness secure."

"Yes," she whispered, without a moment's thought.

CHAPTER V

The fairy little bark, the Bonnibel, swept blithely out into the moonlighted waves.

Bonnibel tied her lace handkerchief over her head, and wrapped the shawl about her shoulders.

Somehow her heart began to grow lighter. This moonlight flitting seemed so sweet and romantic.

Her dark-eyed lover sitting opposite lightly swaying the oars looked handsome as a demi-god to her partial eyes. She trusted him implicitly.

"The king can do no wrong," was her motto.

"You shall never regret this step, never, my darling," Leslie Dane kept saying to her over and over, as if to soothe his conscience, which perhaps reproached him.

And Bonnibel answered with a smile every time, "I never expect to regret it, Leslie, dear."

His rapid strokes of the oar soon brought them to their destination. Brandon was a poor little fishing village consisting only of the rude huts of the fishermen, a little Methodist chapel, and a little parsonage down by the shore rather neater than the rest of the shanties.

Here lived the aged minister and his kind old wife. Thither the young artist directed his steps with Bonnibel clinging to his arm.

Fortunately they met no one on the way, and almost before they knew it they stood in the shabby "best room," which served the good man for study, library and parlor.

There the minister sat with his books, and the good wife with her knitting.

Leslie Dane drew the old man aside and they held a brief whispered colloquy. Apparently the young man made everything satisfactory, for in a minute he came back and led Bonnibel forward to breathe those solemn vows which are so quickly cemented but which death alone can sunder.

Bonnibel was trembling very much, though the hitherto thoughtless child did not in the least realize the magnitude of the step she was taking.

She only thought to herself how sweet it would be to be bound by that sacred tie to Leslie Dane, and she quivered from head to foot with pleasure, and with a certain indefinable nervousness she did not begin to understand, while the two old people stared at her in surprise at her radiant beauty and costly dress.

The solemn words were soon spoken, Leslie making the responses firmly, and Bonnibel in a hushed little voice that was scarcely audible. The young man slipped a ring over her finger that he had always worn on his own, the minister blessed them, the good wife kissed the girl with tears in her eyes, for women always weep at a wedding. Then Leslie slipped a generous fee into the old man's hand, and led his blushing bride away.

"God bless you, my darling, and may you always look back to this hour as the happiest one of your life," he whispered, as he put her into the little skiff and kissed her beautiful lips with an outburst of passionate tenderness.

"I wish you the same happiness, Leslie," whispered the happy little bride.

"In a little while now we shall be parted," said he; "oh, my Bonnibel, how much easier the parting will be when I know that I am leaving my wife behind me—my wife whom no one can keep from me when I come for her."

"It was a happy thought of yours to bind me thus," answered the young bride, softly. "Now that grim presentiment will haunt me no more, and Uncle Francis cannot hurt me with his threats or his coldness while I have this precious secret in my heart."

"Bonnibel," he said, anxiously, "in some moments of defiance you may feel tempted to taunt him by the betrayal of our marriage; but I implore you do not yield to the temptation. More serious consequences may follow than you dream of. Let our secret be a dead secret until I give you leave to proclaim it."

"I will never reveal it, Leslie, I give you my solemn word of honor," replied Bonnibel, earnestly.