When Hyacinth rose the next morning, it was as though long years had
passed over her. Lady Dartelle was not unkind or ungrateful. She sent to
ask if Miss Holte was better and able to resume her work; she also
desired the housekeeper to see that the governess had all she required,
and then, thinking that she had done her duty, she forgot all about
her.
Hyacinth resumed her work, but a burning thirst was upon her--a thirst
that could not be quenched. Adrian was near her, he was under the same
roof, breathing the same air, his eyes would rest on the same scenes, he
would speak every day to the same people. A fever that nothing could
cool seemed to run riot in her veins; her heart burned, her eyes were
hot and weary with watching--a thirst, a longing, a fever, a very
madness possessed her, and she could not control it. She must see him;
she must look upon his face, even should his glance slay her--for she
had loved him so dearly, and in all her lonely life she had never loved
any one else. As flowers thirst in the sultry heat for dew, as the tired
deer longs for cooling streams, so she craved for one glance at the face
that had made all the sunshine and brightness of earth for her.
So she watched and waited. She promised herself this one short glimpse
of happiness. She would look on his face, giving full vent to all the
passionate love of her heart, and then welcome darkness, oblivion, and
death.
Once, in crossing the upper corridor, the door of the billiard-room
suddenly opened, and she heard the sound of laughter and of many voices;
his was among them--clear, rich, distinct--the old musical tone that had
so often made her heart thrill. The sound of it smote her like a deadly
blow. She shrunk back, pale with the pallor of death, faint, trembling.
"My love, my love," murmured the white lips. Hyacinth bent eagerly
forward--she would have given much to hear the sound again, but it had
ceased--the door was closed, and she went on to her room like one who
had stood outside the gates of an earthly paradise, yet knew that those
gates were never to be opened.
Her recent experiences increased the fever of her longing--a fever that
soon began to show itself in her face. She became unwontedly lovely, her
beautiful violet eyes shone with a brilliancy and light almost painful
to see, the red lips were parted as the lips of one who suffers from
intensity of pain, the white hands grew burning hot; the fever of
longing was wearing her very life away, and she thought she could still
it by one look at his face. She might as well have tried to extinguish
flame by pouring oil upon it. At last the chance she had waited and
watched for came. Veronica sent to ask her to go to her room.
"I want you to grant me a great favor," she said. "My maid is correct in
her ideas of dress, but she has no idea of flowers. I have some flowers
here, and knowing your great taste, I should be obliged to you if you
would arrange a spray for my hair."
This speech was so unusually civil for Miss Dartelle that the young
governess was quite overpowered.
"I will do it with pleasure," she replied.
"I want it to be very nice," said Miss Dartelle, with a conscious smile
that was like a dagger in the girl's breast; "one of our visitors, Lord
Chandon, seems to have a mania for flowers. I had almost forgotten--are
there any white hyacinths among the collection?"
"Yes," was the brief reply.
"Do you think there are sufficient to form a nice spray, mixed with some
maiden-hair fern?" she asked. "I should be so pleased if you could
manage it."
"I will try; but, Miss Dartelle, there are so many other beautiful
flowers here--why do you prefer the white hyacinths?"
Her voice faltered as she uttered her name--a name she had never heard
since she fled from all that was dearest to her. Miss Dartelle, who
happened to be in the most gracious humors, smiled at the question.
"I was talking to that same gentleman, Lord Chandon, yesterday, and I
happened to ask him what was his favorite flower. He said the white
hyacinth--oh, Miss Holte, what are you doing?"
For the flowers were falling from the nerveless hand. How could he have
said that? Adrian used to call her his white Hyacinth. Had he not
forgotten her? What could he mean?
"So you see, Miss Holte," continued Miss Dartelle, blandly, "that, as I
should like to please his lordship, I shall wear his favorite flowers."
Yes, she saw plainly enough. She remembered one of those happy days at
Bergheim when she too had worn some fresh, fragrant hyacinths to please
him; and she remembered how he had caressed her, and what loving words
he had murmured to her--how he had told her that she was fairer in his
eyes than any flower that had ever bloomed--how he had taken one of the
hyacinths from her, and, looking at it, had said: "You were rightly
named, my love. You are a stately, fair, fragrant hyacinth indeed."
Now--oh, bitter irony of fate!--now she was to make another beautiful
with these same flowers, in order to charm him.
She was dead to him and to all the bright past; yet at the very thought
of his loving another she grew faint with anguish that had no name. She
went to the window and opened it to admit the fresh, cool air; and then
the opportunity she had waited and longed for came. It was a bright,
clear morning, the sun was shining, and the promise of spring filled the
air. She did not think of seeing Adrian then; but the window overlooked
the grove of chestnut trees, and he was walking serenely underneath
them.
She sunk on her knees, her eyes were riveted on his face with deepest
intensity. It was he--Heaven bless him!--looking graver, older, and more
careworn, but still the same brave, handsome, noble man. Those were the
true, clear eyes that had looked so lovingly into her own; those were
the lips, so firm, so grave, so kind, that had kissed hers and told her
how dear she was to him; those were the hands that had clasped her own.
Shine on him, blessed sun; whisper round him, sweet wind; for there is
none like him--none. She envied the sun that shone on him, the breeze
that kissed his face. She stretched out her hands to him. "My love," she
cried--"my dear lost love!" Her wistful longing eyes followed him.
This was the one glance that was to cool the fever preying upon her;
this was to be her last look on earth at him--and the chestnut grove was
not long--he had passed half through it already. Soon--oh, so soon--he
would pass out of her sight forever. Suddenly he stood still and looked
down the long forest glade; he passed his hand over his brow, as though
to drive away some saddening thought, and her longing eyes never left
him. She thanked Heaven for that minute's respite, and drank in the
grave manly beauty of his face with eyes that were pitiful to see.
"My love," she murmured, in a low hoarse voice, "if I might but die
looking at you."
Slowly the large burning tears gathered in the sorrowful eyes, and sob
after sob rose to the quivering lips: it seemed to her that, kneeling
there with outstretched hands, she was weeping her life away; and then
he began to walk again, and had almost passed out of her sight.
She held out her hands to him with weeping eyes.
"Adrian," she called, "good-by, my love, good-by!"
And he, all unconscious of the eyes that were bent upon him, turned
away, while the darkness and desolation of death fell over the girl who
loved him so dearly.