Despite her shyness and awe of him she had
almost made up her mind to call when, just at dusk on that October
evening, somebody came to the door and asked for her.
She could see the messenger's head against the low new moon. He was
a man-servant. He said he had been all the way to her father's, and
had been sent thence to her here. He simply brought a note, and,
delivering it into her hands, went away.
DEAR MARGERY TUCKER (ran the note)--They say I am not likely to live,
so I want to see you. Be here at eight o'clock this evening. Come
quite alone to the side-door, and tap four times softly. My trusty
man will admit you. The occasion is an important one. Prepare
yourself for a solemn ceremony, which I wish to have performed while
it lies in my power.
VON XANTEN.
CHAPTER XI
Margery's face flushed up, and her neck and arms glowed in sympathy.
The quickness of youthful imagination, and the assumptiveness of
woman's reason, sent her straight as an arrow this thought: 'He
wants to marry me!'
She had heard of similar strange proceedings, in which the orange-
flower and the sad cypress were intertwined. People sometimes wished
on their death-beds, from motives of esteem, to form a legal tie
which they had not cared to establish as a domestic one during their
active life.
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