And Father Mostyn and the Doctor are constant attendants upon the Spawer's recovery too, and stay for meals whenever they want them; and tell him when the whiskey flask is running low.And it comes to be decided that their marriage shall not take place for a year. And meanwhile the Spawer is going to stay where he is; and Pam is to push on with her music, and her French, and with her English, and fill her dear little head with the intellectual fare for which it has always hungered. And she is to do no more letter-carrying. Father Mostyn has inhibited her from that with anex cathedrausage of the great signet. To remain at the Post Office in an official capacity in face of present circumstances would be an act of rebellion towards the Church, and exceedingly offensive to Jehovah. As the girl's spiritual and corporeal guardian, he charges himself with her care until she can be decently and respectably married. And they will go, all three of them, to Hunmouth at times, by Tankard's 'bus (oh, bliss! oh, heavenly rapture!) for purposes of shopping ... and the sheer pleasure of it.And the Spawer talks seriously of coming back to Ullbrig after the honeymoon, and fitting up a little place for their own two selves, where they can be near Father Mostyn, and all their old friends; and where he can work earnestly, and without distractions; and where they can escape all the jealousies and soul-corrupting ambitions of towns and places where they "live.""Oh, little woman!" he tells Pam, "I can't bear to think of your giving up your own dear self, and letting your soul be shaped to the conventional pattern of the world. I want you to be what you are—and for what I love you. You shall see all the big places, of course, dear. We 'll save up our coppers and manage that somehow. But let 's see 'em from the outside. Let 's go and look at them through glass windows, as though they were so many great shops, and come back to our own humble happy life, and break bread and be thankful. The world for us, dear, is just our two selves. We 're two little human hemispheres that go to make our one globe, and if we 're only happy in ourselves ... why, let the other planets go hang! Because you love me I just feel I don't care how many people hate me. They can hate their heads off. They can cry 'pish' to my music. They can turn aside their faces when I go by, as though I were a pestilence. What I do I want to do now for you. I feel I would rather write a little song that pleases you, love, than compose a Beethoven symphony for the world to bow to. And why? Because, dearest, I know that the world is as ready to kick me as to bestow one ha'porth of its kindness ... but You! All the pleasure I can give to you ... is just an investment, which you can pay back to me in love at a thousand per cent.""Is n't it funny?" says Pam, though without showing the least appreciation of the avowed humor, "... what love is. I 've thought the same as you, too, but not put so beautifully. I just want us to try and be like what we are now, in our hearts, as long as we live. At times (do you?) I like to think of you as belonging to me ... as though you were every bit mine. And at other times ... I feel frightened of having you. The responsibility seems somehow too great. And then I just think of myself as belonging to you. And all I want ... is to creep into your heart, dear, and for you to shelter me. Oh, Maurice! To think. Six months ago ... three months ago ... I had no thought of you, or you of me! And we might never have met each other; never have loved each other! Is n't it dreadful?""What the eye does n't see, darling!" Maurice tells her, "... the heart does n't grieve. What we never know we never miss. But now we 're going to make up for what might have been, are n't we?"Pam says yes, they are. "And oh," she says, "if you had n't found me you might have found somebody else, Morrie dear, do you think it possible that I may be standing in the way of somebody you don't know at all ... that you might love better?""Very likely you are, dear!" Maurice says, acting Job's comforter. "But anyway, I 'm ready to risk you, and take my chance of what may be for what is."And this time Pam is ready to risk it too, and does not tell the Spawer, as once she told Ginger:"There must be no chance in love!"CHAPTER XLVIOne bright morning in late September, when the sky dreamed as blue as June, and the sun shone August, a stranger passed through into the churchyard by the lich gate, and his Reverence the Vicar, having received telepathic intimation of his presence, along one or other of the invisible slender filaments that connect the Vicarage with the churchyard, emerged shortly from his retreat, like a fine full-bodied spider, and captured his prize by the side wicket, with a "Ha!" of agreeable greeting."A stranger within our gates!" he observed, in courteous surprise, rocking to and fro upon his legs in the pathway, and balancing the ebony staff across both palms, as though he were weighing theological propositions. He encompassed the sky with a comprehensive circle of ferrule, and thrusting up a rapt nose to appreciation of its beneficent blue, "You bring glorious weather!" he said.The stranger acknowledged with marked politeness that the weather was as his Reverence had been pleased to state. He was an elderly man, soberly habited in black, and a compression of mouth that seemed to betoken one whose office exacted of him either deference or discretion, or perhaps both."A pilgrim to the old heathen centre of Ullbrig?" his Reverence inquired. "... An antiquarian at all? A connoisseur of tablets? or a rubber of brasses?—in which case we 've nothing to show you."The stranger said he was not exactly any of these things."Ha! ... an epitaph hunter, perhaps?" his Reverence substituted agreeably, as though desirous of setting him at ease.Nor scarcely an epitaph hunter ... in the precise sense of the word, the stranger disclaimed. He scanned Father Mostyn sideways with a deferential regard of inquiry. "The Vicar, I presume?" he said.His Reverence acknowledged the appellation by inclining leniently towards it."I thought ... I could not be mistaken," the stranger told him. "As a matter of fact ... I had intended taking the liberty of troubling you with a call, after giving a glance round the gravestones here. It is possible, if you would be so kind, that you might be of considerable assistance to ... to me in a matter of some importance."Father Mostyn wagged the divining rod sagely over his palms."A question of the register? Births? Deaths? Marriages? A pedigree in the issue, perhaps?""To a certain extent, sir, you are quite correct." The stranger compressed his mouth for a moment. "I may as well be explicit on the point. Indeed, there is no reason, sir, why any particular secrecy should be maintained. I am here to pursue investigations on behalf of Messrs. Smettering, Keelman & Drabwell, solicitors, of Lincoln's Inn, who are acting according to instructions received from a client of some importance. Our object is merely to trace and establish connection with a member of our client's family—considerably to this member's advantage, I may assure you."His Reverence looked speculatively over the stick as though the last few sentences had escaped his precise observation, and he were trying now to reclaim the import of them."... A military family at all?" he inquired.The stranger eyed him with respectful surprise and dubiety for a moment."... An old family of importance," he admitted slowly. "I should say it might be called a military family." Then he stopped. "Perhaps..." said he, and looked at his Reverence."Ha!" said his Reverence blandly. "And the present client? An army man, is he?""The son of one, I believe, sir.""To be sure. Precisely. The son of one. Beautiful! beautiful! One or two fat benefices in the family, do you know?""I rather fancy ... there is one attached to the estate. There may be more, for anything to my knowledge." The stranger followed the lead with the resignation of one who plays void of trumps. "If you know anything..." he hazarded.His Reverence stroked a gorgeous nose of wisdom."No mistaking the symptoms. Not a bit of it. Your client seeks recovery of a daughter?"The stranger demonstrated as much surprise as his discretion and his respectfulness would let him."You can inform us ... where she is?""Certainly! certainly! We have been expecting you. I thought you would n't be long in reaching us now. To-morrow ... or Thursday, I thought." His Reverence cast a fine finger of effect towards the white headstone, rising from the grass, beneath the east window. "She is there.""Dead?" said the stranger."Your client is just a little matter of thirteen years too late.""Her married name was Searle?" said the stranger, as though offering the fact for the priest's verification."To be sure. On the gravestone. On the gravestone. 'Sacred to the memory of Mary Pamela Searle.' And her father's name, of course, was...""... Paunceforth, since you know it, sir, ... of Briskham Park, Hampshire.""He will be getting an old man," said his Reverence."Seventy-four ... or five," the stranger responded, "... and very feeble. He has had one seizure already, and is anxious to make amends, before he dies, for an act of early severity. At one stage of the proceedings there was a child involved. A daughter. Is she still living? If you can give me any information likely to lead to her recovery, I may tell you that expense will be no object at all. No stone is to be left unturned, by our client's instructions, to trace matters to their final step. And I may add that ... as this is now the last surviving branch of our client's family ... and he is a gentleman of considerable wealth...""Exactly," said his Reverence. "I think it will not be difficult to conclude matters to your client's entire satisfaction. His granddaughter has been, and still is, under my safe care.... Just come along with me as far as the Vicarage. There are a few things there in my possession. ... Beautiful! beautiful! Quite an Indian summer we 're having."And that same day, before dinner, the news is racing all over Ullbrig that Pam's grandfather had sought for her and found her; and that she is to be a real lady at last, and ride horses, and drive carriages, and order servants of her own, and live in a great big house in a great big park, where deer are grazing and peacocks stalk the terraces, and will never come back to Ullbrig any more, but give them all the go-by now, and set her nose up higher than ever; and the Spawer is only marrying her for her money.Steggison says to himself with a Satanic joy:"Noo all s'll get a chance at post-bag. She promised me ah sewd 'ave fost try at it if owt 'appened 'er. Mah wod! Bud ah 'll gie 'em James Maskell an' all. They 'll 'a t' run when ah call of 'em—ne'er mind if they weean't!"And James Maskill stands forlornly with his back propped against the post-house bricks, and a heel hitched up to the wall beneath him, and his hands in his pockets, and his mouth screwed to a spiritless whistle that can't produce the ghost of a sound; staring at nothing, and thinking of nothing; and feeling nothing—for life in front of him is nothing now, and he would n't have the heart to fetch Dingwall Jackson his promised bat across the lug, even if you caught him and held his head up for the purpose.And Emma Morland is bursting with pride, and weeping with the misery of losing Pam—for this fashionable interment of Pam in the classic vaults of High Society fills her with a more terrible sense of their severance than a little green grave in Ullbrig churchyard.And the postmaster makes an impressive chief mourner, standing by the counter with set face and lowered eyes as though it were a coffin, and telling his daughter, when she comes hither to embarrass him with her demonstrations of grief:"It 's all for t' best, lass no doot. We s'll larn to get ower it i' time."And Mrs. Morland, her mingled gladness and sorrow commingling to reminiscence, tells, through fond tears, how Pam did this, and Pam did that; and how she 'd always thought of others before herself; and what a strange sad house it would be without her—and wept herself into perspirations, and wiped her tears and her steaming forehead with large double sweeps of her apron. And Ginger went off his food again—for though she 'd never been his, at each new name with which hers was coupled, he felt once more as though he 'd just lost her.And Pam went dancing up to Cliff Wrangham that day, hugging his Reverence's arm—as sad as any of them, and so joyful that it seemed not earth she trod on, but the big round prismatic blown bubble of a dream, shivering warningly, all ready to puff into nothing and let her down into nowhere. And when they came to Dixon's, Pam went into the little parlor, and looked at the Spawer, and said, "Oh, Morrie!" in a doleful voice of preparation. For, to tell the truth, though she was come here intended to play a little comedy on him, with a triumphantdénouement, her own conviction in things actual (including, for the time, their own happiness) had been so surprisingly shaken that, despite her errand's being presumably of gladness, she looked, as she looked at him, for all the world as though she had seen a ghost."Good gracious, darling!" said the Spawer, in concern, when he saw her. "Whatever 's been happening now?""Oh, Maurice!" said Pam again, trying hard to win back assurance that he and she were not two mere unsubstantial figments of somebody else's dream, but flesh and blood, and dear and bend to each other. "I 've something to tell you, dear—I mean, to ask you, dear. Do you love me?""Do I love you?" repeats the Spawer, with a look of incredulous surprise, and a tinge, in his tones, of severity. "What a remarkable question to ask a man—and at such short notice! Really, Miss Searle ... I must confess you surprise me.""Oh, but do you, do you?" begs Pam."Well, it 's dreadfully, horribly sudden," says Maurice. "And you put me quite in a flutter. But since you 're rather an attractive girl ... well, yes, I do.""Oh, but suppose ... suppose..." says Pam, going on...."Yes, little riddle-me-ree?""Suppose ... suppose I was n't what you 've always thought me. Suppose it were found that ... I was n't a lady at all. Suppose I was somebody altogether different from what Father Mostyn said I was."Sundry speculative shadows rise up in the Spawer's mind, but he is not dismayed, and feels no flinching."Well?" says he encouragingly. "And suppose you were?""Would it make no difference?" Pam asks tremulously, it must be confessed, for oh ... if now it should!"Darling," says the Spawer firmly, "not the least little bit."Pam wants then and there to clasp his avowal and proclaim her mission. Her soul has scarcely strength for further dissimulation, but for the full crop of joy that she hopes to reap in the end, she keeps her hand to the plough."Would you want to marry me ... just the same?" she asks."More!" says Maurice Ethelbert. "A hundred times more.""Why more?" Pam inquires vaguely; her curiosity suddenly fanned to seek the reason of this strange great increase in his affection for her."Because," the Spawer tells her, "the less you are to the world, dear, the more you must be to me. The less claim the world can make upon you, the more I feel I 've got you all to myself.""You would still marry me, under any conditions?" persists Pam."Under any and all.""And you won't let me go?""I won't let you go.""Whatever people say?""Whatever people say.""You 'll hold me as tight ... as you held me when we thought we were going to die ... that night.""Tighter, darling, tighter.""Even if...""If what?""... I should turn out ... just a bit of a lady, after all, dear?"The Spawer is going to answer, but he stops suddenly, lifts up the girl's face, and looks straight into her eyes."Pam!" says he.THE END*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKTHE POST-GIRL***
And Father Mostyn and the Doctor are constant attendants upon the Spawer's recovery too, and stay for meals whenever they want them; and tell him when the whiskey flask is running low.
And it comes to be decided that their marriage shall not take place for a year. And meanwhile the Spawer is going to stay where he is; and Pam is to push on with her music, and her French, and with her English, and fill her dear little head with the intellectual fare for which it has always hungered. And she is to do no more letter-carrying. Father Mostyn has inhibited her from that with anex cathedrausage of the great signet. To remain at the Post Office in an official capacity in face of present circumstances would be an act of rebellion towards the Church, and exceedingly offensive to Jehovah. As the girl's spiritual and corporeal guardian, he charges himself with her care until she can be decently and respectably married. And they will go, all three of them, to Hunmouth at times, by Tankard's 'bus (oh, bliss! oh, heavenly rapture!) for purposes of shopping ... and the sheer pleasure of it.
And the Spawer talks seriously of coming back to Ullbrig after the honeymoon, and fitting up a little place for their own two selves, where they can be near Father Mostyn, and all their old friends; and where he can work earnestly, and without distractions; and where they can escape all the jealousies and soul-corrupting ambitions of towns and places where they "live."
"Oh, little woman!" he tells Pam, "I can't bear to think of your giving up your own dear self, and letting your soul be shaped to the conventional pattern of the world. I want you to be what you are—and for what I love you. You shall see all the big places, of course, dear. We 'll save up our coppers and manage that somehow. But let 's see 'em from the outside. Let 's go and look at them through glass windows, as though they were so many great shops, and come back to our own humble happy life, and break bread and be thankful. The world for us, dear, is just our two selves. We 're two little human hemispheres that go to make our one globe, and if we 're only happy in ourselves ... why, let the other planets go hang! Because you love me I just feel I don't care how many people hate me. They can hate their heads off. They can cry 'pish' to my music. They can turn aside their faces when I go by, as though I were a pestilence. What I do I want to do now for you. I feel I would rather write a little song that pleases you, love, than compose a Beethoven symphony for the world to bow to. And why? Because, dearest, I know that the world is as ready to kick me as to bestow one ha'porth of its kindness ... but You! All the pleasure I can give to you ... is just an investment, which you can pay back to me in love at a thousand per cent."
"Is n't it funny?" says Pam, though without showing the least appreciation of the avowed humor, "... what love is. I 've thought the same as you, too, but not put so beautifully. I just want us to try and be like what we are now, in our hearts, as long as we live. At times (do you?) I like to think of you as belonging to me ... as though you were every bit mine. And at other times ... I feel frightened of having you. The responsibility seems somehow too great. And then I just think of myself as belonging to you. And all I want ... is to creep into your heart, dear, and for you to shelter me. Oh, Maurice! To think. Six months ago ... three months ago ... I had no thought of you, or you of me! And we might never have met each other; never have loved each other! Is n't it dreadful?"
"What the eye does n't see, darling!" Maurice tells her, "... the heart does n't grieve. What we never know we never miss. But now we 're going to make up for what might have been, are n't we?"
Pam says yes, they are. "And oh," she says, "if you had n't found me you might have found somebody else, Morrie dear, do you think it possible that I may be standing in the way of somebody you don't know at all ... that you might love better?"
"Very likely you are, dear!" Maurice says, acting Job's comforter. "But anyway, I 'm ready to risk you, and take my chance of what may be for what is."
And this time Pam is ready to risk it too, and does not tell the Spawer, as once she told Ginger:
"There must be no chance in love!"
CHAPTER XLVI
One bright morning in late September, when the sky dreamed as blue as June, and the sun shone August, a stranger passed through into the churchyard by the lich gate, and his Reverence the Vicar, having received telepathic intimation of his presence, along one or other of the invisible slender filaments that connect the Vicarage with the churchyard, emerged shortly from his retreat, like a fine full-bodied spider, and captured his prize by the side wicket, with a "Ha!" of agreeable greeting.
"A stranger within our gates!" he observed, in courteous surprise, rocking to and fro upon his legs in the pathway, and balancing the ebony staff across both palms, as though he were weighing theological propositions. He encompassed the sky with a comprehensive circle of ferrule, and thrusting up a rapt nose to appreciation of its beneficent blue, "You bring glorious weather!" he said.
The stranger acknowledged with marked politeness that the weather was as his Reverence had been pleased to state. He was an elderly man, soberly habited in black, and a compression of mouth that seemed to betoken one whose office exacted of him either deference or discretion, or perhaps both.
"A pilgrim to the old heathen centre of Ullbrig?" his Reverence inquired. "... An antiquarian at all? A connoisseur of tablets? or a rubber of brasses?—in which case we 've nothing to show you."
The stranger said he was not exactly any of these things.
"Ha! ... an epitaph hunter, perhaps?" his Reverence substituted agreeably, as though desirous of setting him at ease.
Nor scarcely an epitaph hunter ... in the precise sense of the word, the stranger disclaimed. He scanned Father Mostyn sideways with a deferential regard of inquiry. "The Vicar, I presume?" he said.
His Reverence acknowledged the appellation by inclining leniently towards it.
"I thought ... I could not be mistaken," the stranger told him. "As a matter of fact ... I had intended taking the liberty of troubling you with a call, after giving a glance round the gravestones here. It is possible, if you would be so kind, that you might be of considerable assistance to ... to me in a matter of some importance."
Father Mostyn wagged the divining rod sagely over his palms.
"A question of the register? Births? Deaths? Marriages? A pedigree in the issue, perhaps?"
"To a certain extent, sir, you are quite correct." The stranger compressed his mouth for a moment. "I may as well be explicit on the point. Indeed, there is no reason, sir, why any particular secrecy should be maintained. I am here to pursue investigations on behalf of Messrs. Smettering, Keelman & Drabwell, solicitors, of Lincoln's Inn, who are acting according to instructions received from a client of some importance. Our object is merely to trace and establish connection with a member of our client's family—considerably to this member's advantage, I may assure you."
His Reverence looked speculatively over the stick as though the last few sentences had escaped his precise observation, and he were trying now to reclaim the import of them.
"... A military family at all?" he inquired.
The stranger eyed him with respectful surprise and dubiety for a moment.
"... An old family of importance," he admitted slowly. "I should say it might be called a military family." Then he stopped. "Perhaps..." said he, and looked at his Reverence.
"Ha!" said his Reverence blandly. "And the present client? An army man, is he?"
"The son of one, I believe, sir."
"To be sure. Precisely. The son of one. Beautiful! beautiful! One or two fat benefices in the family, do you know?"
"I rather fancy ... there is one attached to the estate. There may be more, for anything to my knowledge." The stranger followed the lead with the resignation of one who plays void of trumps. "If you know anything..." he hazarded.
His Reverence stroked a gorgeous nose of wisdom.
"No mistaking the symptoms. Not a bit of it. Your client seeks recovery of a daughter?"
The stranger demonstrated as much surprise as his discretion and his respectfulness would let him.
"You can inform us ... where she is?"
"Certainly! certainly! We have been expecting you. I thought you would n't be long in reaching us now. To-morrow ... or Thursday, I thought." His Reverence cast a fine finger of effect towards the white headstone, rising from the grass, beneath the east window. "She is there."
"Dead?" said the stranger.
"Your client is just a little matter of thirteen years too late."
"Her married name was Searle?" said the stranger, as though offering the fact for the priest's verification.
"To be sure. On the gravestone. On the gravestone. 'Sacred to the memory of Mary Pamela Searle.' And her father's name, of course, was..."
"... Paunceforth, since you know it, sir, ... of Briskham Park, Hampshire."
"He will be getting an old man," said his Reverence.
"Seventy-four ... or five," the stranger responded, "... and very feeble. He has had one seizure already, and is anxious to make amends, before he dies, for an act of early severity. At one stage of the proceedings there was a child involved. A daughter. Is she still living? If you can give me any information likely to lead to her recovery, I may tell you that expense will be no object at all. No stone is to be left unturned, by our client's instructions, to trace matters to their final step. And I may add that ... as this is now the last surviving branch of our client's family ... and he is a gentleman of considerable wealth..."
"Exactly," said his Reverence. "I think it will not be difficult to conclude matters to your client's entire satisfaction. His granddaughter has been, and still is, under my safe care.... Just come along with me as far as the Vicarage. There are a few things there in my possession. ... Beautiful! beautiful! Quite an Indian summer we 're having."
And that same day, before dinner, the news is racing all over Ullbrig that Pam's grandfather had sought for her and found her; and that she is to be a real lady at last, and ride horses, and drive carriages, and order servants of her own, and live in a great big house in a great big park, where deer are grazing and peacocks stalk the terraces, and will never come back to Ullbrig any more, but give them all the go-by now, and set her nose up higher than ever; and the Spawer is only marrying her for her money.
Steggison says to himself with a Satanic joy:
"Noo all s'll get a chance at post-bag. She promised me ah sewd 'ave fost try at it if owt 'appened 'er. Mah wod! Bud ah 'll gie 'em James Maskell an' all. They 'll 'a t' run when ah call of 'em—ne'er mind if they weean't!"
And James Maskill stands forlornly with his back propped against the post-house bricks, and a heel hitched up to the wall beneath him, and his hands in his pockets, and his mouth screwed to a spiritless whistle that can't produce the ghost of a sound; staring at nothing, and thinking of nothing; and feeling nothing—for life in front of him is nothing now, and he would n't have the heart to fetch Dingwall Jackson his promised bat across the lug, even if you caught him and held his head up for the purpose.
And Emma Morland is bursting with pride, and weeping with the misery of losing Pam—for this fashionable interment of Pam in the classic vaults of High Society fills her with a more terrible sense of their severance than a little green grave in Ullbrig churchyard.
And the postmaster makes an impressive chief mourner, standing by the counter with set face and lowered eyes as though it were a coffin, and telling his daughter, when she comes hither to embarrass him with her demonstrations of grief:
"It 's all for t' best, lass no doot. We s'll larn to get ower it i' time."
And Mrs. Morland, her mingled gladness and sorrow commingling to reminiscence, tells, through fond tears, how Pam did this, and Pam did that; and how she 'd always thought of others before herself; and what a strange sad house it would be without her—and wept herself into perspirations, and wiped her tears and her steaming forehead with large double sweeps of her apron. And Ginger went off his food again—for though she 'd never been his, at each new name with which hers was coupled, he felt once more as though he 'd just lost her.
And Pam went dancing up to Cliff Wrangham that day, hugging his Reverence's arm—as sad as any of them, and so joyful that it seemed not earth she trod on, but the big round prismatic blown bubble of a dream, shivering warningly, all ready to puff into nothing and let her down into nowhere. And when they came to Dixon's, Pam went into the little parlor, and looked at the Spawer, and said, "Oh, Morrie!" in a doleful voice of preparation. For, to tell the truth, though she was come here intended to play a little comedy on him, with a triumphantdénouement, her own conviction in things actual (including, for the time, their own happiness) had been so surprisingly shaken that, despite her errand's being presumably of gladness, she looked, as she looked at him, for all the world as though she had seen a ghost.
"Good gracious, darling!" said the Spawer, in concern, when he saw her. "Whatever 's been happening now?"
"Oh, Maurice!" said Pam again, trying hard to win back assurance that he and she were not two mere unsubstantial figments of somebody else's dream, but flesh and blood, and dear and bend to each other. "I 've something to tell you, dear—I mean, to ask you, dear. Do you love me?"
"Do I love you?" repeats the Spawer, with a look of incredulous surprise, and a tinge, in his tones, of severity. "What a remarkable question to ask a man—and at such short notice! Really, Miss Searle ... I must confess you surprise me."
"Oh, but do you, do you?" begs Pam.
"Well, it 's dreadfully, horribly sudden," says Maurice. "And you put me quite in a flutter. But since you 're rather an attractive girl ... well, yes, I do."
"Oh, but suppose ... suppose..." says Pam, going on....
"Yes, little riddle-me-ree?"
"Suppose ... suppose I was n't what you 've always thought me. Suppose it were found that ... I was n't a lady at all. Suppose I was somebody altogether different from what Father Mostyn said I was."
Sundry speculative shadows rise up in the Spawer's mind, but he is not dismayed, and feels no flinching.
"Well?" says he encouragingly. "And suppose you were?"
"Would it make no difference?" Pam asks tremulously, it must be confessed, for oh ... if now it should!
"Darling," says the Spawer firmly, "not the least little bit."
Pam wants then and there to clasp his avowal and proclaim her mission. Her soul has scarcely strength for further dissimulation, but for the full crop of joy that she hopes to reap in the end, she keeps her hand to the plough.
"Would you want to marry me ... just the same?" she asks.
"More!" says Maurice Ethelbert. "A hundred times more."
"Why more?" Pam inquires vaguely; her curiosity suddenly fanned to seek the reason of this strange great increase in his affection for her.
"Because," the Spawer tells her, "the less you are to the world, dear, the more you must be to me. The less claim the world can make upon you, the more I feel I 've got you all to myself."
"You would still marry me, under any conditions?" persists Pam.
"Under any and all."
"And you won't let me go?"
"I won't let you go."
"Whatever people say?"
"Whatever people say."
"You 'll hold me as tight ... as you held me when we thought we were going to die ... that night."
"Tighter, darling, tighter."
"Even if..."
"If what?"
"... I should turn out ... just a bit of a lady, after all, dear?"
The Spawer is going to answer, but he stops suddenly, lifts up the girl's face, and looks straight into her eyes.
"Pam!" says he.
THE END
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKTHE POST-GIRL***