Warlock

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"MARRIED!" echoed Joan. "Cosmo, how could you!"

She looked up in his face wild and frightened.

"Well, you never wrote! and--"

"It was you never wrote!"

"_I_ did not, but my father did, and got no answer."

"I wrote again and again, and BEGGED for an answer, but none came. If it hadn't been for the way I dreamed about you, I don't know what would have become of me!"

"The devil has been at old tricks, Joan!"

"Doubtless--and I fear I have hardly to discover his agent."

"And Mr. Jermyn?" said Cosmo, with a look half shy, half fearful, as if after all some bolt must be about to fall.

"I can tell you very little about him. I have scarcely seen him since he brought me the money."

"Then he didn't. . . . ?"

"Well, what didn't he?"

"I have no right to ask."

"Ask me ANYTHING."

"Didn't he ask you to marry him?"

Joan laughed.

"I had begun to be afraid he had something of the kind in his head, when all at once I saw no more of him."

"How was that?"

"I can only guess: he may have spoken to my brother, and that was enough."

"Didn't you miss him?"

"Life WAS a little duller."

"If he HAD asked you to marry him, Joan?"

"Well?"

"Would you?"

"Cosmo!"

"You told me I might ask you anything!"

She stood, turned to the roadside, and sat down on the low earth-dyke. Her face was white.

"Joan! Joan!" cried Cosmo, darting to her side; "what is it, Joan?"

"Nothing; only a little faintness. I have walked a long way and am getting tired."

"What a brute I am!" said Cosmo, "to let you walk! I will carry you again."

"Indeed you will not!" she answered, moving a little from him.

"Do you think you could ride on a man's saddle?"

"I think so. I could well enough if I were not tired. But let me be quiet a little."

They were very near the place where Cosmo's horse must be waiting him. He ran to take him and send the groom home with a message.

To Joan it was a terrible moment. Had she, most frightful of thoughts! been acting on a holy faith that yet had no foundation? She had come to a man who asked her whether she would not have married his friend! She had taken so much for understood that had not been understood!

When Joan sat down Agnes stopped--a good way off: till the moment of service arrived she would be nothing. Several times she started to run to her, for she feared something had gone wrong, but checked herself lest she should cause more mischief by interfering. When she saw her sink sideways on the dyke, she did run, but seeing Cosmo hurrying back to her, stopped again.

Before Cosmo reached her Joan had sat up. The same faith, or perhaps rather hope, which had taken shape in her dreams, now woke to meet the necessity of the hour. She rose as Cosmo came near, saying she felt better now, and let him put her on the horse.

But now Joan was determined to face the worst, to learn her position and know what she must do.

"Has the day not come yet, Cosmo?" she said. "Cannot you now tell me why you left me so suddenly?"

"It may come with your answer to the question I put to you," replied Cosmo.

"You are cruel, Cosmo!"

"Am I? How? I do not understand."

This was worse and worse, and Joan grew rather more than almost angry. It is so horrid when the man you love WILL be stupid! She turned her face away, and was silent. A man must sometimes take his life in his hand, and at the risk of even unpardonable presumption, suppose a thing yielded, that he may know whether it be or not. But Cosmo was something of the innocent Aggie took him for.

"Joan, I don't see how I am wrong, after the permission you gave me," persisted he, too modest. "Agnes would have answered me straight out."

He forgot.

"How do you know that? What have you ever asked her?"

Joan, for one who refused an answer, was tolerably exacting in her questions. And as she spoke she moved involuntarily a step farther from him.

"I asked her to marry me," replied Cosmo.

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