A Woman Martyr

								

just begun.  I am distracted with pain!  I shall be in bed all day
to-morrow, I am sure!  Put off coming till the day after, won’t you?"
Was it a dream, an illusion--her confiding, tender manner--that sweet
appealing look in those adored, beautiful eyes?  Vansittart felt
suddenly weak and tremulous as he drew her hand within his arm.  She
loved him!  He was certain of it!  She loved him! She had not known it
till he dared all in that passionate kiss.  He vaguely felt himself the
Pygmalion who had awakened another Galatea.
"My darling, I am afraid it is my fault," he murmured in her ear, as he
conveyed her towards the corner where Lady Thorne sat patiently
listening to the prattle of the surrounding dowagers, and trying not to
wish the evening at an end.  "How dear of you to to say ’No!’  Of course
I will postpone coming.  But I may call and enquire?  No? Very well!
You have only to command me, my queen, my adored!"
Could it be real, that faint pressure of his arm, as he looked fondly
down upon that lovely little golden head?  Vansittart almost lost his
grip upon himself, almost forgot to act the mere amiable cavalier, as he
accompanied Joan and her inwardly relieved and delighted aunt to the
cooler regions of the ducal establishment, and after vainly pressing
them to take some refreshment, found their carriage.  As he stood
bareheaded under the awning after they had driven off, he glanced up at
the sky--it had been raining and now a wreath of cloud had parted to
disclose a misty moon--and a vague but real remorse that he had not kept
up with the noble truths he had learned at his dead mother’s knee in
those days which seemed a century or more ago brought the moisture to
his happy eyes.  "God forgive me, I do not deserve her!" was the honest
prayer which went up from his overladen heart as he turned, somewhat
giddily, and tried to walk into the ducal mansion without the
unsteadiness which might lead some of those priggish menservants to
imagine he had dined rather too well than wisely. "But, if I only can
succeed in making her my own, her life shall be a royal one!"
Would he have felt so triumphantly joyful if he could have seen his
beloved, after they parted?
Arrived at home, Joan dismissed her maid as soon as she could get rid of
her without exciting any suspicion, and spent a night’s vigil in facing
the situation.
She remembered her innocent, ignorant schooldays--when, infected by the
foolish talk of frivolous elder girls--they were mostly daughters of
rich parents, Joan’s godmother paid for the education which could not be
afforded by the poor clergyman and his invalid wife--she was flattered
by the admiring gaze of a handsome young man who watched her in church
each Sunday from his seat in a neighbouring pew.  Schoolgirl talk of him
led to chance glances of hers in response. Then came a note artfully
dropped by him and picked up by a school friend, delighted to feel