"Perhaps you'll mind your own business!" cried Deena, driven to fury.
He left the room singing in a quavering treble:
I'll pray for you when on the stormy ocean With love's devotion. That's what I'll do.
It was a song with which a nursemaid of the Shelton children had been wont to rock the reigning baby to sleep, and had lurked in Dicky's memory for many a year.
Poor Deena was thoroughly ruffled. It was maddening to have a love she held as the most sacred secret of her heart vulgarized by a boy's coarse teasing, and, in addition, she was jealous of her own dignity--anxious to pay her dead husband proper respect--distressed at the possibility of Stephen's thoughtful kindness becoming a subject of comment in the town. And yet what difference did it make?
This carefully guarded secret would be public property by her own consent before a week was over, for Dicky's announcement of French's return was no news to Deena--at that very moment her heart was beating against a letter which assured her he was following fast upon its tracks, and when he came he was not likely to prove a patient lover. All through that second summer his letters had been growing more tender, more urgent, till at last he had taken matters into his own hands, and decided that their separation must end. For aught she knew, his vessel might already have reached New York--he might be that blessed moment on his way to Harmouth! The thought sent little thrills of happiness bounding through her veins. She had a shrewd idea he would appear unannounced by letter or telegram, but not to-day--certainly not to-day--she reflected.
There were plenty of small duties waiting for her that morning, but in woman's parlance she "couldn't settle to anything"; there was an excitement in her mood that demanded the freedom of fresh air. She went up to her bedroom and stood for a moment at her window before yielding to the impulse that beckoned her out into the sunshine; and, drawing Stephen's letter from her dress, she read it once more, to make sure she had missed no precious hint as to the time of his sailing. He wrote:
May I come back? You must know all I mean that to imply--to come back, my best beloved, to you--to order my life in accordance to your pleasure--to marry you the day I set foot in Harmouth--or to wait impatiently till you are pleased to give yourself to me. I trust your love too entirely to fear that you will needlessly prolong the time. You are too fair-minded to let mere conventions weigh with you as against my happiness. Between you and me there must be no shams, and yet I would not shock or hurry you for the world.