A DARK CLOUD OVER FAIR ACRES.
"How did it happen, Thomas? _Tell_ me, Thomas?"
"It's them Mendip fellows," he said. "The master rode to Chewton
yesterday, and somewhere about nine o'clock Mavis come home with no one
on his back. We knew summat was amiss, and we set out with lant'uns, the
mistress and I----"
"Mother went!"
"Yes; we couldn't keep her back. We was wandering about most of the
night. About eight o'clock this morning a cart comed along, and there
was the master brought home more dead than alive by one of farmer
Scott's carters."
"He is alive, then; oh! he is alive?"
"Well, yes; he was when I comed off," Thomas said, doubtfully.
"And why did not you come for me before? Oh! you should have sent
before. Oh, Thomas! Thomas!"
"Well," said Thomas, "we've had so much running about for doctors; and
Mavis ain't much good. We was short of hands and horses."
"Had he had a fall?" Joyce asked, "a fall from Mavis?"
"Aye, I dare say; but he was knocked off by a blow of a stone or summat.
There's a hole in his temple, just cut clean by a stone so they say."
"Oh, father! oh, father!" Joyce murmured.
"There's a lot of folks come to see after him. Mr. Paget and Squire
Bennett, and the Bishop's son from Wells; and there's no want of help;
and they'll try and hunt him out."
"Hunt who out?"
"Why, the brute that caused the master to fall off Mavis's back, of
course. I never did hold with master being so free riding over the
Mendips at late hours. I've said so scores of times--_scores_. But
there, he had the heart of a lion, he had."
_Had! had!_ How the word smote on Joyce's ear.
"_Has_ father--_has_--" she murmured, "he cannot, cannot be--dead!"
After this Joyce said no more. They went at a fair pace along the lonely
lanes; they passed through villages where the men were smoking pipes at
the cottage doors, the women standing by with babies in their arms,
while dusty, dirty little urchins played at "cross sticks" under the
very nose of the old horse. Once they passed a small farm where a
mother, neatly dressed, was standing at the gate, and a girl of fourteen
ran out to meet a man with her baby brother in her arms, who stretched
out his hands as the girl said:
"Yes, there's daddy! Go to daddy; welcome, daddy!"
Ah! how often had Joyce watched for her father at the gate! How her
heart had thrilled with joy as she ran to meet him; and now!
A low cry escaped her, which made Thomas turn his head, which he had
hitherto kept steadily to the front, as if everything depended on his
staring straight between the ears of the horse, and never looking to the
right hand, or the left.
Thomas was a hard featured man, who had served the old squire, and to
whom Mr. Falconer was still "Master Arthur." "Doan't ee fret, my dear
Miss Joyce. It's the hand of the Almighty."
Ah, _was_ it the hand of Almighty Love, the God that had so lately
revealed Himself to her in Christ, the All-loving as well as the
All-mighty--was it possible He could take away 'the master from her head
that day'?
The old servant's voice quavering with sympathy made Joyce feel that she
was also trembling on the brink of tears.
"Thomas, I want to be brave, for I shall have to comfort him and
mother."
Then there was silence again. The even jog trot of the horse's heavy
hoofs kept up a continuous rhythm:
"Home, home again; home, home again--this seemed the burden of the
strain--home, home again, but the same home never, never again."
The evening shadows were lying across the turf where the daisies had
closed their golden eyes for the night, when the gig turned into the
familiar road and drew up at the door.
The door was open, but there was no one there. Joyce sprang down and
passed in, throwing off her large bonnet, and unfastening the clasp of
her cloak, which seemed like to choke her.
In the supreme moments of life the most trivial things always seem to
fasten upon the outward senses, as if to show, by force of contrast, the
enormous proportions of the great trouble--or the great joy, it may
be--which is at the time overshadowing us.
So Joyce, as she stood in the hall, noticed that one of the stag's
glass eyes had dropped out and lay upon the bench upon which Gilbert
Arundel had sat on the night of their adventure on the moor. She saw,
too, lying there, a large pair of scissors, and a roll of lint lay on
the window-seat, with a basin in which the water was coloured a pale
crimson. "They bandaged his head here," she thought,--and she was going
upstairs, when slow, heavy, jerky footsteps were heard, and Duke came
down, and, putting his nose into her hand, whined a low, piteous whine.
"Oh! Duke, Duke, where is he?"
As if he understood her human speech--as, indeed, he did, Duke turned to
precede her upstairs.
On a bench in the long corridor two maid servants were seated, crying
bitterly. But Joyce did not speak to them, she dared not; even the
question she had asked Duke died on her lips.
The door of her father's room was ajar; and as Duke pushed it open with
his nose, Joyce could see the great four-post bed, her mother sitting by
it, and curled up in the window-seat was Piers.
The friends who had been there in the early part of the day were gone;
they could do no more at Fair Acres. And Mr. Paget's aim was to set the
constables to work to find the man who must have hurled a sharp stone at
Mr. Falconer's head. The Wells doctor, too, was gone. He had a pressing
case near Wells upon his hands, but he was to return at eight o'clock,
when, it was hoped the doctor greater than himself, who had been
summoned from Bristol, would have arrived.
In those days help in emergency was slow to obtain. Telegrams were not
dreamed of, and horsepower performed the part which steam was soon to
take up; to be followed by the marvellous electric force, which now
sends on the wings of the wind messages all over the world, multiplied,
on the very day on which I write, to an enormous extent, by the
introduction of sixpenny telegrams, which will send a call for help, or
strike a note of joy, and win an immediate response from thousands.
But there were no electric messages possible to get medical help for the
squire, nor, indeed, would any help avail.
With a great sigh, Duke resumed his watch at the foot of the high bed;
and Joyce, crossing over, kissed her mother and Piers, and then gazed
down upon her father.
"Dear dad!" she said, inadvertently using the familiar name.
"He has not spoken nor opened his eyes since we laid him here," Mrs.
Falconer said. "He knows no one--no one----"
"Did he tell how it happened?"
"No."
"It might have been that he was thrown from--from--Mavis."
"No," Mrs. Falconer said again, "that could not be, they think; besides,
they found a heavy stick and a tinder box close by."
Presently Piers came down from his place, and Joyce put her arms round
him. The boy was very calm, but great tears fell upon Joyce's hand as
she pressed him close.
The silent watch went on. Duke lay motionless, but his eyes were on the
alert. The servants looked in sometimes, and brought Joyce and her
mother some tea and cake. Joyce swallowed a cup of tea, but ate nothing.
Could this be the evening of the day which dawned so brightly?--the
Wrington bells chiming, the village children singing hymns, joyousness
and gladness everywhere. The guests gathered round Mrs. More; the
bright, intelligent conversation to which she was listening; then her
own narrative of the Mendip adventure;--and this brought her to the
present from the past!
If her father had been assailed by a malicious miner on Mendip, that
assailant was Bob Priday; of this she felt no doubt.
The Bristol doctor came, and the Wells doctor and they held a
consultation. But there was nothing to be done; the injury Mr. Falconer
had received was mortal.
"Will he give no sign, no word that he knows us?" Mrs. Falconer asked.
"Oh, for one word!"
"We do not think there will be any return of consciousness," the doctors
said, "but we cannot tell."
No; no one could tell. And so the sad hours of the night passed, and the
dawn broke over the familiar fields, and Fair Acres smiled in the first
bright rays of the morning.
Piers had slept curled up in his window-seat, worn out with grief. Mrs.
Falconer, too, had slept in an upright position, her head resting
against the back of the chair, sleeping for sorrow.
But Joyce did not sleep; she kept watch, hoping, praying for one word of
farewell.
As the first sunbeam slanted through the casement, her father opened his
eyes, and fastened them on Joyce. "Sunshine," he said, with a faint
smile. "Dear child."
"Dearest father, dear father!"
"I hope my little girl will be named after my mother, _Joyce_. Yes, it
is an old-world name, but I fancy it; name her Joyce."
The sound of his master's voice roused Duke, who pricked his ears and
came to the bedside. Mrs. Falconer also started and awoke.
"There is a word I cannot catch, about the _Life_. Try to think of it. I
can't."
Joyce glanced at her mother.
"What does he mean?" she said, helplessly. "Oh! what does he want?"
"The Life; I am the Life." The words came with difficulty now.
Then Piers, starting up, said:
"I know. I think I know. 'Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the
_Life_.'"
A smile of infinite content came over the father's face.
"_Yes_," he said. "Yes, the Life."
Presently he murmured Melville's name, and those of the children who had
gone before.
"The little girls all died but _one_," he said. "One is left--Sunshine."
They knelt down as in the presence of something unseen but near; for the
shadows gathered on the fine face of the husband and father; and Piers
repeated for the second time:
"Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the Life!"
As if with a great effort to repeat the words, the squire said, faintly,
"Jesus said,"--then silence fell; and the next thing Joyce knew was
that she was lying in her own little bed, and that she was fatherless.
* * * * *
The news of the squire's death spread quickly through the whole
district. As is often the case, no one knew how much he had been
respected till he was gone. Then there were terrible circumstances
connected with his death, which, apart from his loss, troubled the
magistrates who had sat with him on the bench, and had probably made
enemies, as he had done, in the performance of their duty.
The roads across the Mendip were avoided more than ever, and as time
went on and nothing was heard of or discovered about the man who had
thrown the missile which had caused Mr. Falconer's death; if the wonder
faded out, the fear remained; the county constabulary were, truth to
tell, afraid of their own lives, and there was no machinery of
detectives at work then, as now. However, whatever search was made it
was fruitless, and the offender had escaped beyond the reach of
punishment.
As with a sudden transition into a new state of existence, Joyce found
herself the central figure to whom everyone looked for help and advice.
Her mother collapsed utterly. She would sit for hours in that inaction,
which it is so painful to notice in those who have been once so full of
life and movement. The boys who had been sent for from school did not
return to it. Ralph surprised everyone by saying that he should give up
study, and come and live at home and help his mother--at any rate, till
Melville came back, if ever he did come back, to take his place at Fair
Acres. By interest exerted by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Harry and
Bunny both got into the navy, and went forth, poor little boys, full of
hope and delight, to encounter the hardships which then were the
universal fate of little middys, in their first acquaintance with the
salt sea waves they loved so well.
It was touching to see the young brother and sister, who were left at
the head of affairs, resolutely doing their utmost to spare their
mother, and to keep things, as Mr. Watson called it, "square."
If he were old he was intensely useful and honourable; and Ralph's power
to adapt himself to his new manner of life was really wonderful. He set
himself to study the few and scanty agricultural books which were on his
father's shelves, and mastered the accounts in a way which Mr. Gell, the
lawyer, and Mr. Paget, the executor under the will, found to be
surprising.
Miss Falconer had sent many kind little notes on very deep black-edged
paper, and sealed with a large black seal, to "her dear afflicted
sister;" and Charlotte, who had returned from Barley Wood on the day
after Joyce left it, composed verses of doubtful rhythm, and still more
doubtful sense, which she sent, done up in brown paper parcels by the
carrier, as they were too voluminous to be conveyed in any other way.
Verses in which "bleeding hearts" and "rivers of tears," sought vainly
for appropriate rhymes; where "fears" refused to follow "bears," and
"eyes" was made to do duty again and again with "prize" and "sighs."
Mrs. More wrote a tender letter of sympathy to Joyce, and would have
driven over to see her, had not the shortening days and threatened cold
kept her a close prisoner. Indeed, she was laid low with one of her most
dangerous illnesses before September was over; and Miss Frowde and her
doctor thought it more than doubtful if, at her advanced age, she would
recover.
It was on a still October afternoon, when autumnal stillness reigned in
the woods and fields, that Joyce went to the seat under the fir trees to
be alone with her sorrow. The grassy slope was slippery now with recent
rain, and though the clouds had rolled off eastward, the sunshine was
pale and watery, coming in fitful gleams through the veil of thin misty
vapour which hung over the sky.
Joyce often came to this seat; it was associated with her father, and
she loved to be there and give full vent to the sorrow which, for the
sake of others, she had learned to hide. Miss Falconer and Charlotte had
paid one visit of condolence after the funeral. They were surprised, and
I may even say disappointed, to see Joyce so calm, and Miss Falconer
thought how different it would be with Charlotte when she was taken from
her; she would be entirely prostrate and unfit for exertion.
It is well for the world that some people are fit for exertion, even in
the midst of crushing sorrow. It would be a melancholy thing if all
grief-stricken ones fed on their grief in solitude, and shut themselves
up from doing their best, to lighten the burden of others.
Miss Falconer would not have had cause to lament Joyce's unnatural calm,
if she had seen her as she sat upon the old bench, in the dim, pale
light of the October day, when, amidst the hush of all around, her sobs
and low cry of "Oh! father--father," throbbed in the quiet air.
They had been so much to each other; they had understood each other so
perfectly. The beautiful tie between father and daughter, which when it
exists is one of the most beautiful in the world, seemed severed,
cruelly severed, and Joyce was desolate. She was scarcely eighteen, and
the freshness and gladness of her life hitherto had been remarkable.
Now, all unawares, the storm had swept over her sky, and, when it
passed, left her lonely indeed.
Mrs. Falconer was one of those people who bury their dead out of sight,
and cannot bear the mention of their names. Ralph, setting his face
bravely to meet his duty, did not speak of his father as Joyce would
have loved to speak of him, and it was only to Piers, that Joyce could
sometimes ease her burdened heart, by talking of her father. Just as on
the summer morning, now looking so far off, left in the golden haze of
joy and glad young life, Joyce had seen her lame brother at the gate of
the plantation, so she saw him now.
She made a great effort to control her weeping, and said:
"It is very slippery on the turf to-day; wait, dear, and I will come
down to help you." But Piers said:
"I want _you_ to come down; I don't want to come up."
"Is anything the matter?"
Piers did not answer, and in another minute Joyce was at his side.
"Joyce, there is a woman hiding under the maples and brambles."
"A woman? Perhaps she is one of the women employed on the farm."
"I don't know," said Piers, "I wish you would come and see who it is."
"Very well, dear," Joyce said; "you are sure it is a _woman_?"
"Yes, and she is crying and sobbing."
Joyce followed Piers along the shrubbery path, now covered with a new
layer of fallen leaves, and, at the turn of a still narrower side path,
she saw, half hidden by the brambles and undergrowth, a woman; her head,
bowed upon her hands, and her attitude one of despair.
Joyce went near and said: "What is the matter? Are you in pain? Can I
help you?"
The woman raised her head, and Joyce recognised at once that she was
Susan Priday.
Thoughts of the night on Mendip; of the fierce onslaught made on Gilbert
Arundel by the big giant, and the almost certainty she felt, that the
cruel blow aimed at her father was by the same hand, made Joyce start
back and say, coldly:
"You had better not stay here, these are private grounds."
Piers, who was leaning against the bole of a beech tree, said:
"Yes; get up and go away. I will show you the gate into the road."
"Lady," said the girl, passionately, "I came to see _you_. I saw you
sobbing and crying on the bench yonder, for I got into the plantation
that way. I heard you sob, and call 'Father,' and then my heart nearly
broke, and I came round at the back and got over the hedge. I felt as if
I dare not speak to you. Do you know me, lady?"
"Yes," Joyce said; "of course I see who you are, but I--I cannot do
anything for you, and we are all in great grief, very, very great
grief," Joyce said, with a sudden spasm of agony in her voice.
"I know it, I know it, that's why I came; and I'm in grief, too. Father
is gone away, no one knows where; the boys have run off, and, oh! the
baby is dead. I did think I'd keep him, for mother's sake; but, in a
drunken fit, father threw a pot of boiling water at me. It missed me,
and the baby caught it on his neck and face, and it scalded him
dreadful. The school mistress was kind, and so was Mrs. Amos, she that
owns the farm; but he died--he died--and I am all alone. Oh! Miss, oh!
dear young lady, pity me."
"I do pity you," Joyce said. "But where is your father? For you must be
aware that suspicion points to him as the cause of my--of my dear
father's death."
"Yes, I do know it. Oh! miss, forgive me, and let me come and serve
you. I want no wage; but I'd die for you, if that would do you good. I
have never forgot your face that night, nor how you spoke soft then
instead of angry. Oh, miss, let me come and live with you. I will sleep
on the ground. I'll do the work of two in the dairy, or in the house,
and I want no wage. Poor mother always said God would take care of me,
but He has taken away the baby, He has, that is the cruellest part. And
father; oh! miss, you can't tell what it is to be filled with shame
about a father."
"No, indeed," Joyce said. "No; I know what it is to be proud of one, and
to----" Her voice broke down, and Piers said:
"She ought to go away, Joyce; she can't be left here."
But Joyce seemed to be thinking for a few minutes. Here was a girl whose
father had, as everyone thought, been the cause of her father's death;
here was the daughter of this man, coming to her and begging to be taken
into the house, to be her servant? Was it possible?
With a discretion far beyond her years, Joyce said, "I will make
inquiries about you from the school mistress, and if I find you really
bear a good character, I will get you a place, and----"
"I want no place apart from _you_" the girl said, passionately. "If I
could die to undo my father's wicked deed, I would die, and," she added,
sadly, "it ain't much I have to live for now the baby's gone. But if you
won't take me, well, I'll tramp to Bristol; and if I can't get bread in
an honest way, I must get it somehow else."
"No, no; don't say that. I must consider and think, and if I can take
you I will. Mrs. More is so ill, so ill that it is feared she will not
live, so I can't write to her. But I will _think_, and," she added, in a
low voice, "I will pray about it. I am in great trouble myself; we are
all in great trouble."
"I know it, I know it. Oh! dear lady, ever since night and day, night
and day, I have prayed for you, and that God would keep you."
There was something in the girl's despairing voice which touched Joyce
to the heart.
"Come round to the kitchen door with me," she said, "and I will see that
you have rest and food. I am sure you want both."
"I don't want rest; there is no rest in me, and food chokes me."
But Joyce took no notice of this, and saying, decidedly, "follow me,"
she put her hand on Piers' shoulder, and they went through the
plantation to the house, skirting it to the left instead of crossing
it, and so round to the stable-yard and the back premises.
Mrs. Falconer never had old maid servants; she trained girls to fill the
places in her household, and of these, there was an endless stream
passing through. The two in the kitchen now were both kindly,
good-tempered girls, utterly ignorant, but simple-hearted and honest.
"I want this poor young woman," Joyce said, "to rest by the fire; and
give her her supper before she leaves. Sarah, do you hear me?" Joyce
said.
"Yes, miss, I hear," Sarah said, surveying the poor, forlorn girl with
scorn. "Yes, miss. I don't know whether missis would hold with taking in
a tramp like her."
"I am going to ask mother now," Joyce said; "and I know you are
kind-hearted, Sarah, and that you will attend to this poor girl, because
I wish it."
Sarah gave a low sound, which was taken for consent; and Joyce, judging
rightly that Susan Priday would be better left to the servants, went to
find her mother.
As she crossed the hall she met Ralph.
"There are letters from Italy," he said. "Melville had not heard when he
wrote."
"Where are the letters?" Joyce asked.
"Mother has them. There is one for you--not from Italy though; it has
the Bristol post-mark, and is franked. There was an immense deal to pay
for Melville's."
Joyce waited to hear no more, but went to her mother. She was sitting
with her son's letter open before her. It began, "Dear father and
mother," and these words went like a knife through Joyce's heart.
Mrs. Falconer sat day after day in the same chair by the fire-place. Her
large widow's cap--in those days an immense erection of many thick
frillings, and with long "weepers" falling over her shoulders--altered
her so entirely, scarcely any one would have recognised her.
Joyce glanced through the letter. It was as self-sufficient and trifling
as ever. Melville found foreign travel less delightful than he had
expected.
The diligence was then the universal mode of transit through France, and
the two travellers had taken a whole month to reach Hyeres, a journey
which can now be got through in three days at the longest calculation.
Melville complained of the food and the cramped diligence, and how the
smell of garlic made him sick; and how old Crawford was as "stiff as
starch," and that he did not think he should stay away long.
Of Genoa la Superba not a word, except to say that he had seen a fine
copy of one of Raphael's pictures for sale, which, if his father would
send the money, he would buy, for the dining hall at Fair Acres.
Joyce had hardly patience to finish the letter; but her mother said:
"Give the letter to me, Joyce." And then she smoothed the thin sheet of
foreign paper tenderly, and, refolding it, placed it in her large
work-box, which stood unused by her side.
Joyce, meantime, opened the other letter, and a bright flush came over
her face. She could not read it there; she put it into her deep pocket,
and said:
"Dear mother, a poor girl is in the kitchen; she is utterly friendless
and forlorn. May I let her sleep in the empty attic to-night, till I
make inquiries about her of the mistress of one of Mrs. More's schools
to-morrow?"
"You can do as you like, Joyce," was the reply, as poor Mrs. Falconer
relapsed into her usual condition of dreary silence, after kindling into
some interest about Melville's letter.
"You can do as you like--my day is over."
"Mother, dearest mother, do not say so; you will feel better soon. It
is--it is the suddenness of the blow that has come upon you--and upon us
all--that has stunned you. Do try to take comfort."
"Comfort, Joyce! You don't know what you are saying. I lived for your
father--and I have lost him. It was cruel, cruel to take him in his
prime, to leave me desolate!"
"You have got us children to love you, mother," Joyce ventured to say;
"and think how good Ralph is, giving up everything he cared for most, to
take up the business of the farm."
"As if he could do that," was the reply. "Ralph is not fit for it."
"Mr. Watson says it is wonderful how he has fallen into the ways of
people on the estate. He has such a firm will and purpose in everything
he does."
Mrs. Falconer sighed.
"Well," she said, "I don't want to talk any more about it. I think if
you will get me the yarn I will go on knitting Harry's stockings."
"Oh, yes," Joyce said; "and Piers will be so pleased to hold the skeins
for you, mother."
Then she kissed her mother again and again, and whispered:
"You will come to church on Sunday, mother, won't you? It is so dull for
you, sitting here day after day."
"I can do nothing else," was the reply--"nothing else. What else should
I do? You are a dear, good child, Joyce. He always said so; he was
always right."
There is nothing harder to meet than a grief like poor Mrs. Falconer's;
or rather, I should say, there is nothing harder to meet than a grief
which refuses to recognise love in the midst of anguish which hardens
and, as it were, paralyzes the whole being; changes the fountain of
sweetness into bitterness; making the accustomed routine of duty
impossible and falling on the sufferer like a heavy pall.
"Missus is like somebody else; can't believe it is missus at all," the
maids said, when Joyce returned with the orders for poor Susan to remain
all night, and to be cared for till the morning.
The poor girl was so utterly exhausted that she had fallen asleep, her
face hidden on her arm, her elbows on the kitchen table; and her
attitude of utter helplessness touched Joyce.
"Be kind to her," she said; "she is very unhappy. Be kind to her, Sarah.
I know you _will_ be kind to her as I wish it."
Then Joyce ran to her room and took the letter from her pocket.
The evening was closing in fast, but kneeling on the window-seat, she
opened the lattice, and all the daylight yet lingering in the west fell
upon the clearly written page of Bath post paper.
The letter was dated: "Sion Hill, Clifton, near Bristol," and began:
"If I have delayed sending you an expression of my sympathy in your
trouble, dear Miss Falconer, it has been that I feared to intrude
upon you in your grief, and feared, too, that I should touch it
with too rough a hand. But I remember your parting words, your kind
promise not to forget me. Thus I venture to tell you that I bear
you ever in my mind, and that the time may come, _will_ come, when
I shall beg you to hear more from me than I can say now, and grant
me a very earnest petition. But not now would I speak of myself or
of my hopes and fears. Rather would I tell you how I pray God to
comfort you for the loss of a father, whom I count it an honour to
have known. I would ask you to believe that I, who have had the
privilege of watching the happy home-life--now, alas! so sadly
broken up--can, at least, understand what the wreck must be. Please
present my regards and sympathy to Mrs. Falconer, and assure her
of my remembrance of her kindness to me while her guest at Fair
Acres, if indeed you think I may venture so far.
"I remain, dear Miss Falconer,
"Your very faithful and true
"GILBERT DECOURCY ARUNDEL."
There was a postscript written on the blank part of the sheet of Bath
post, which was folded over.
"My mother is likely to visit the Palace, at Wells, in November. I
have charged her, if possible, to see you at Fair Acres. I have
heard nothing from your brother, but I am well satisfied that he is
out of England, for reasons which you know.--G. DeC. A."
The reserved style of this letter, so different from the random shots of
the present day, when young men and maidens seem to think the form of a
telegram the most appropriate way of expressing their thoughts, may
provoke a smile, and be pronounced priggish and formal. But in Joyce's
eyes it was a perfect letter, and she felt it to be a support and
comfort to her in her loneliness. Words which come from the heart seldom
miss their aim; and Joyce felt that, underlying those carefully written
lines, there was the certainty that if her promise to him was
fulfilled, and that she thought, even in her sorrow, of him continually,
_he_, on his part, did not forget her.
In the simplicity of her young heart, she had never dreamed that Gilbert
could really care for her, and his long silence had made her think of
him only as of someone who had passed out of her life, and was to be in
future but a memory. Now the fluttering hope became almost a certainty,
and she repeated to herself many times that evening, as a bird repeats
its song over and over with the same rapture of content--
"I bear you ever in my mind, and the time may come, _will_ come, when I
will beg you to hear more from me than I dare to say now, and grant me a
very earnest petition."
"The time _will_ come--the time _will_ come, and, meanwhile, I can
wait," she thought. "Yes, the time will come, and I can wait."
[Illustration]