The Argosy — page 354: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

335 TALE AND JIT. Se figures were standing in the bay-window of a country draw- ing-room ; a glorious summer’s sunset was gilding the topmost branches of the trees in the old garden with its last rays, and the chimes in the village church-tower rang out eight o’clock. Their sound broke a long silence which had reigned in the room, and the young man, fixing his eyes on his girl companion, spoke hurriedly. ‘IT did not know it was so late! I must be off, or I shall miss my train to town, and my regiment at Portsmouth, and all my chances of getting on in the world. But, by Heaven, I’ll do even that, if you will only say to me ‘Stay !’” “But I don’t say Stay, Jack; I say Go. Go, and God bless you!” There was a deep tenderness in her low voice which any man might have been proud to hear, but, because she would not grant him his wish, young Marriott found her harsh and cruel. “And what’s the good of that, if you yourself won’t bless me, Jill? What else in the world do I care for but your " “Then go and do your duty, and prove yourself worthy of me!” “ But if you will not promise me that you will be mine?” he asked sadly. And Jill went on to answer him in her sweetest, firmest way. “‘T have told you, Jack, that, though I will not promise now to be your wife, I will promise it to you in three years, or sooner, if you come home; and, till then, you and I are both of us to be free. I know my own heart well enough, and I daresay you think you know yours, but how can you tell with whom you may fall in love while you are away? You are only one-and-twenty now, and I am almost the only girl you have ever known. How can you tell what the world may have to teach you and show you?” “Oh, my darling! No one else in it can ever be the same to me that you are!” “Well, then, if you think so after three years, I will be your proud wife. Surely, if we are in earnest, we can be true to each other without any formal promise to bind us! And, if we cannot, then it will be ten times better for us never to have been engaged. Now, good-bye, Jack,” she added, after a pause. ‘ Asyousay, if you stay longer, you will really be too late. Good-bye.” “You are so calm and quiet. Ah, Jill, if you cared as much as Ido!” And he seized her hand and covered it with kisses. She was very calm, certainly; but for all that, when in another comicoookks im