A Bottle in the Smoke Part 41

Mark went on to tell her that his return to India would no longer be to the familiar Puranapore. Since the Collector was about to retire, he acknowledged, he was nothing loth to have a change, especially since an attractive post had been offered to him in the North, though it would necessitate a speedy return to the East.

He now bent forward suddenly, saying:

"Hester, would you risk the black water again and go with me? You have all my love and my worship--will you be my wife? I once banished my love as a forbidden thing and tried to be your loyal friend----"

"You did, Mark," murmured Hester, with bowed head. "Right loyally you did----"

"But now--the present is ours, Hester, the present and the future. You will make it golden for me if you will grant me this. Hester, didn't you invite me to come and learn wisdom at your feet as I came under this tree?" asked Mark, with a glowing mien, flinging himself on the ground and looking up into her drooping face.

"No, it was Charlie I invited."

"My answer, Hester! I have waited long," he pleaded, looking at her with all his soul in his eyes. "I know now too well that I loved you before--before that other ever saw you."

Hester felt as if she knew it too. And she also knew that as the first man who had wooed and won her was false, this one was wholly true.

Stretching out both her hands to him, she said:

"Yes, Mark, I will venture the black water again with you! Where you go I will go. My love and trust are wholly yours--and have been since--since that morning we stood together on the deck of the _El Dorado_."

_Jarrold & Sons, Ltd., Printers, The Empire Press, Norwich._