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Page 33
Soon, soon she will be with him. How will they greet each other? Will he
look into Dora's eyes as he used to look into hers not so very long ago?
Arthur Dynecourt read her aright when he foresaw that she would be
unable to repress the desire to follow Dora, and see for herself the
meeting between her and Sir Adrian.
Hastily putting on a large Rubens hat, and twisting a soft piece of
black lace round her neck, she runs down-stairs and, taking a different
direction from that she knows Dora most likely pursued, she arrives by
a side path at the lime-walk almost as soon as her cousin.
Afraid to venture too near, she obtains a view of the walk from a high
position framed in by rhododendrons. Yes, now she can see Dora, and now
she can see too, the man who comes eagerly to meet her. His face is
slightly turned away from her, but the tall figure clad in the loose
light overcoat is not to be mistaken. He advances quickly, and meets
Dora with both hands outstretched. She appears to draw back a little,
and then he seizes her hands, and, stooping, covers them with kisses.
A film seems to creep over Florence's eyes. With a stifled groan, she
turns and flies homeward. Again in the privacy of her own room, and
having turned the key securely in the lock to keep out all intruders,
she flings herself upon her bed and cries as if her heart would break.
* * * * *
Not until her return to her room does Dora remember that she did not get
back the false letter from her cousin. In the heat of the conversation
she had forgotten it, but now, a fear possessing her lest Florence
should show it to any one, she runs upstairs and knocks at Miss
Delmaine's door.
"Come in," calls Florence slowly.
It is three hours since she went for her unhappy walk to the lime-grove,
and now she is composed again, and is waiting for the gong to sound
before descending to the drawing-room, where she almost dreads the
thought that she will be face to face with Sir Adrian. She is dressed
for dinner, has indeed taken most particular pains with her toilet, if
only to hide the ravages that these past three hours of bitter weeping
have traced upon her beautiful face. She looks sad still, but calm and
dignified.
Dora is dressed too, but is looking flurried and flushed.
"I beg your pardon," she says; "but my letter--the letter I showed you
to-day--have you it?"
"No," replies Florence simply; "I thought I gave it back to you; but,
if not, it must be here on this table"--lifting a book or two from the
small gypsy-table near which she had been sitting when Dora came to her
room early in the day.
Dora looks for it everywhere, in a somewhat nervous, frightened manner,
Florence helping her the while; but nothing comes of their search, and
they are fain to go down-stairs without it, as the gong sounding loudly
tells them they are already late.
"Never mind," says Dora, afraid of having betrayed too much concern.
"It is really of no consequence. I only wanted it, because--well,
because"--with the simper that drives Florence nearly mad--"he wrote it."
"I shall tell my maid to look for it, and, if she finds it, you shall
have it this evening," responds Florence, with a slight contraction of
her brows that passes unnoticed.
To Florence's mortification, Arthur Dynecourt takes her in to dinner. On
their way across the hall from the drawing-room to the dining-room, he
presses the hand that rests so reluctantly upon his arm, and says, with
an affectation of the sincerest concern--
"You are not well; you are looking pale and troubled, and--pardon me if
I am wrong, but I think you have been crying."
"I must beg, sir," she retorts, with excessive _hauteur_, removing her
hand from his arm, as though his pressure had burned her--"I must beg,
you will not trouble yourself to study my countenance. Your doing so is
most offensive to me."
"To see you in trouble, and not long to help or comfort you is
impossible to me," goes on Dynecourt, unmoved by her scorn. "Are you
still dwelling on the past--on what is irrevocable? Have you had fresh
cause to remember it to-day?"
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