He believed you'd married that Duke of Merthshire fellow.This is the way it was: Let me tell it to you quick.A letter that had been wandering round came to him the night before the cave-in, when they thought he was killed.It told him old Temple Barholm was dead.He started out before daylight, and you can bet he was strung up till he was near crazy with excitement.He believed that if he was in England with plenty of money he could track down that cardsharp lie.He believed you'd help him.Somewhere, while he was traveling he came across an old paper with a lot of dope about your being engaged."Joan remembered well how her mother had worked to set the story afloat--how they had gone through the most awful of their scenes--almost raving at each other, shut up together in the boudoir in Hill Street.
"That's all he remembers, except that he thought some one had hit him a crack on the head.Nothing had hit him.He'd had too much to stand up under and something gave way in his brain.He doesn't know what happened after that.He'd wake up sometimes just enough to know he was wandering about trying to get home.It's been the limit to try to track him.If he'd not come to himself we could never have been quite sure.That's why I stuck at it.But he DID come to himself.All of a sudden.Sir Ormsby will tell you that's what nearly always happens.
They wake up all of a sudden.It's all right; it's all right.I used to promise him it would be--when I wasn't sure that I wasn't lying."And for the first time he broke into the friendly grin--but it was more valiant than spontaneous.He wanted her to know that it was "all right.""Oh!" she cried, "oh! you--"
She stopped because the door was opening.
"It's Jem," he said sharply."Ann, let's go." And that instant Little Ann was near him.
"No! no! don't go," cried Lady Joan.
Jem Temple Barholm came in through the doorway.Life and sound and breath stopped for a second, and then the two whirled into each other's arms as if a storm had swept them there.
"Jem!" she wailed."Oh, Jem! My man! Where have you been?""I've been in hell, Joan--in hell!" he answered, choking, --"and this wonderful fellow has dragged me out of it."But Tembarom would have none of it.He could not stand it.This sort of thing filled up his throat and put him at an overwhelming disadvantage.He just laid a hand on Jem Temple Barholm's shoulder and gave him an awkwardly friendly push.
"Say, cut me out of it!" he said."You get busy," his voice rather breaking."You've got a lot to say to her.It was up to me before;--now, it's up to you."
Little Ann went with him into the next room.
The room they went into was a smaller one, quiet, and its oriel windows much overshadowed by trees.By the time they stood together in the center of it Tembarom had swallowed something twice or thrice, and had recovered himself.Even his old smile had come back as he took one of her hands in each of his, and holding them wide apart stood and looked down at her.
"God bless you, Little Ann," he said."I just knew I should find you here.I'd have bet my last dollar on it."The hands he held were trembling just a little, and the dimples quivered in and out.But her eyes were steady, and a lovely increasing intensity glowed in them.
"You went after him and brought him back.He was all wrought up, and he needed some one with good common sense to stop him in time to make him think straight before he did anything silly," she said.
"I says to him," T.Tembarom made the matter clear; "`Say, you've left something behind that belongs to you! Comeback and get it.' I meant Lady Joan.And I says, `Good Lord, man, you're acting like a fellow in a play.That place doesn't belong to me.It belongs to you.If it was mine, fair and square, Little Willie'd hang on to it.There'd be no noble sacrifice in his.You get a brace on.'""When they were talking in that silly way about you, and saying you'd run away," said Little Ann, her face uplifted adoringly as she talked, "I said to father, `If he's gone, he's gone to get something.And he'll be likely to bring it back.'"He almost dropped her hands and caught her to him then.But he saved himself in time.
"Now this great change has come," he said, "everything will be different.The men you'll know will look like the pictures in the advertisements at the backs of magazines--those fellows with chins and smooth hair.I shall look like a chauffeur among them."But she did not blench in the least, though she remembered whose words he was quoting.The intense and lovely femininity in her eyes only increased.She came closer to him, and so because of his height had to look up more.
"You will always make jokes--but I don't care.I don't care for anything but you," she said."I love your jokes; I love everything about you: I love your eyes--and your voice --and your laugh.I love your very clothes." Her voice quivered as her dimples did."These last months I've sometimes felt as if I should die of loving you."It was a wonderful thing--wonderful.His eyes--his whole young being had kindled as he looked down drinking in every word.
"Is that the kind of quiet little thing you are?" he said.
"Yes, it is," she answered firmly.
"And you're satisfied--you know, who it is I want?-- You're ready to do what you said you would that last night at Mrs.Bowse's?""What do you think?" she said in her clear little voice.
He caught her then in a strong, hearty, young, joyous clutch.
"You come to me, Little Ann.You come right to me," he said.