How Mary Hawker Said “Yes.”

It was one evening during the next spring, and the game of whist was over for the night. The servant had just brought in tumblers with a view to whiskey and water before bed. I was preparing to pay fourteen shillings to Mrs. Buckley, and was rather nervous about meeting my partner, the Major’s eye, when he, tapping the table with his hand, spoke:—

“The most childish play, Hamlyn; the most childish play.”

“I don’t defend the last game,” I said. “I thought you were short of diamonds — at least I calculated on the chance of your being so, having seven myself. But please to remember, Major, that you yourself lost two tricks in hearts, in the first game of the second rubber.”

“And why, sir?” said the Major. “Tell me that, sir. Because you confused me by leading queen, when you had ace, king, queen. The most utterly schoolboy play. I wouldn’t have done such a thing at Eton.”

“I had a flush of them,” I said eagerly. “And I meant to lead ace, and then get trumps out. But I put down queen by mistake.”

“You can make what excuses you like, Hamlyn,” said the Major. “But the fact remains the same. There is one great fault in your character, the greatest fault I know of, and which you ought to study to correct. I tell you of it boldly as an old friend. You are too confoundedly chary in leading out your trumps, and you can’t deny it.”

“Hallo!” said Captain Brentwood, “who comes so late?”

Mary Hawker rose from her chair, and looked eagerly towards the door. “I know who it is,” she said, blushing. “I heard him laugh.”

In another moment the door was thrown open, and in stalked Tom Troubridge.

“By George!” he said. “Don’t all speak to me at once. I feel the queerest wambling in my innards, as we used to say in Devon, at the sight of so many old faces. Somehow, a man can’t make a new home in a hurry. It’s the people make the home, not the house and furniture. My dear old cousin, and how are you?”

“I am very quiet, Tom. I am much happier than I thought to have been. And I am deeply thankful to see you again.”

“How is my boy, Tom?” said the Major.

“And how is my girl, Tom?” said the Captain.

“Sam,” said Tom, “is a sight worth a guinea, and Mrs. Samuel looks charming, but — In point of fact you know I believe she expects —”

“No!” said the Captain. “You don’t say so.”

“Fact, my dear sir.”

“Dear me,” said the Major, drumming on the table. “I hope it will be a b —. By the bye, how go the sheep?”

“You never saw such a country, sir!” said Tom. “We have got nearly five thousand on each run, and there is no one crowding up yet. If we can hold that ground with our produce, and such store-sheep as we can pick up, we shall do wonders.”

By this time Tom was set at supper, and between the business of satisfying a hunger of fifteen hours, began asking after old friends.

“How are the Mayfords?” he asked.

“Poor Mrs. Mayford is better,” said Mrs. Buckley. “She and Ellen are just starting for Europe. They have sold their station, and we have bought it.”

“What are they going to do in England?” asked Tom.

“Going to live with their relations in Hampshire.”

“Ellen will be a fine match for some young English squire,” said Tom. “She will have twenty thousand pounds some day, I suppose.”

And then we went on talking about other matters.

A little scene took place in the garden next morning, which may astonish some of my readers, but which did not surprise me in the least. I knew it would happen, sooner or later, and when I saw Tom’s air, on his arrival the night before, I said to myself, “It is coming,” and so sure enough it did. And I got all the circumstances out of Tom only a few days afterwards.

Mary Hawker was now a very handsome woman, about one and forty. There may have been a grey hair here and there among her long black tresses, but they were few and far between. I used to watch her sometimes of an evening, and wonder to myself how she had come through such troubles, and lived; and yet there she was on the night when Tom arrived, for instance, sitting quite calm and cheerful beside the fire in her half-mourning (she had soon dropped her weeds, perhaps, considering who her husband had been, a piece of good taste), with quite a placid, contented look on her fine black eyes. I think no one was capable of feeling deeper for a time, but her power of resilience was marvellous. I have noticed that before. It may, God forgive me, have given me some slight feeling of contempt for her, because, forsooth, she did not brood over and nurse an old grief as I did myself. I am not the man to judge her. When I look back on my own wasted life; when I see how for one boyish fancy I cut myself off from all the ties of domestic life, to hold my selfish way alone, I sometimes think that she has shown herself a better woman than I have a man. Ah! well, old sweetheart, not much to boast of either of us. Let us get on.

She was walking in the garden, next morning, and Tom came and walked beside her; and after a little he said —

“So you are pretty well contented, cousin?”

“I am as well content,” she said, “as a poor, desolate, old childless widow could hope to be. There is no happiness left for me in this life!”

“Who told you that?” said Tom. “Who told you that the next twenty years of your life might not be happier than any that have gone before?”

“How could that be?” she asked. “What is left for me now, but to go quietly to my grave?”

“Grave!” said Tom. “Who talks of graves for twenty years to come! Mary, my darling, I have waited for you so long and faithfully, you will not disappoint me at last?”

“What do you mean? What can you mean?”

“Mean!” said he; “why, I mean this, cousin: I mean you to be my wife — to come and live with me as my honoured wife, for the next thirty years, please God!”

“You are mad!” she said. “Do you know what you say? Do you know who you are speaking to?”

“To my old sweetheart, Polly Thornton!” he said, with a laugh — “to no one else in the world.”

“You are wrong,” she said; “you may try to forget now, but you will remember afterwards. I am not Mary Thornton. I am an old broken woman, whose husband was transported for coining, and hung for murder and worse!”

“Peace be with him!” said Tom. “I am not asking who your husband was; I have had twenty years to think about that, and at the end of twenty years, I say, my dear old sweetheart, you are free at last: will you marry me?”

“Impossible!” said Mary. “All the country-side knows who I am. Think of the eternal disgrace that clings to me. Oh, never, never!”

“Then you have no o............