CHAPTER XLIV.
Thea caught up a big black sun-hat trimmed with a long wreath of trailing grasses, and took her way to her favorite resort—the river that flowed through the grounds at Verelands.
It was an ideal day, she thought, as she skipped gayly along. The air was sweet and warm, the sun shone brightly on the flowers that seemed to nod a fragrant greeting to the lovely girl as she passed. Something of the sunshine and warmth of the day seemed to shine into her heart and dispel the hovering shadows of unrest and hopeless love.
“Oh, why should I be sad?” she cried. “One can not have everything one wants, and this beautiful old world is bright enough of itself to fill one’s heart with gladness!”
Then she started back in bashful surprise, for just before her she saw her tall, handsome guardian. He was standing on the bank of the river, where some cypress-trees grew thickly, forming a deep shade. His hat lay on the ground, and his well-shaped head, with its cluster of wavy black hair, leaned back against a tree-trunk, his downcast eyes, infinitely grave and sad, fixed upon the now shallow river that went whispering and sighing along.
Some bitter retrospection had driven him forth to the fatal spot where so many years ago his love and faith in his beautiful wife had died so ghastly a death. Only a moment ago it had seemed to him he could see her there at his feet groveling, seeking for the fatal red roses, the witnesses of her terrible crime.
He had turned sick and faint again with the hideous memory; he had leaned his head back against the tree and half shut his eyes, and then he had heard a girl’s soft voice murmuring some indistinct words to herself. He turned his head and saw Thea close to him, and it rushed over him as a happy augury that she should come to him here, bringing the sunlight of her presence into the gloom that hung forever over this fatal spot.
“Oh!” she cried, starting back as their eyes met.
“Oh!” he echoed, smiling, and, stooping, recovered his hat. “If you are out for a walk, may I join you?” he asked.
She nodded assent, and he walked on by her side out of the shadow of the cypresses into the sunlight of the narrow by-path.
“Mrs. de Vere sent me out into the air to get up a fine complexion for the ball,” she said, smiling up into his grave, dark face, with a secret wonder over the shadow that lay in his eyes.
But he smiled back at her even though it cost him an effort, and replied:
“My mother was cruel to the young men who will be at the ball to try to add another charm to your perfection. Does she think
“‘To gild refined gold?To paint the lily?’”
“‘To gild refined gold?To paint the lily?’”
“‘To gild refined gold?To paint the lily?’”
“‘To gild refined gold?
To paint the lily?’”
There came to her again the suggestive lines:
“Too warm for a friend and too cold for a lover;”
“Too warm for a friend and too cold for a lover;”
“Too warm for a friend and too cold for a lover;”
“Too warm for a friend and too cold for a lover;”
and she sighed even while she said, demurely:
“Thank you.”
“You were talking to yourself as you came up to me,” he said. “Is that a habit of yours?”
“Yes, but I am heartily ashamed of it,” blushing.
“I wish I could hear you sometimes when alone. I should like to know some of your secret thoughts, Little Sweetheart.”
“For instance?” she asked, encouragingly.
“How do you like Verelands?”
“It is the most charming home in the world.”
“And its master?”
The swift color rushed to her cheek, but she answered, simply and gravely:
“My best friend!”
“And something else that perhaps you have never guessed, Sweetheart.”
She started and looked up at him, wondering at the strong emotion in his voice. Their eyes met, and he said, huskily:
“Your lover.”
He stopped then, carried away by a swift rush of emotion. Catching her hands in his, as he had done several times before under the stress of strong feeling, he asked:
“Do you comprehend me, Sweetheart? I love you, not asIpretended—with a brother’s love—but with the truest and deepest passion my heart has ever known. Can you love me in return? Will you be my wife?”
He felt the trembling of the graceful form as he held tight to the little hands. Her face drooped, and a wave of roseate color swept from chin to brow. Thea could scarcely look at him, but it was impossible for her to speak, so she lifted her downcast lids, and gave him a swift, quickly withdrawn glance so full of exquisite joy and love that he could not doubt the story told him by those deep violet eyes.
With a thrill of rapture he drew his little love close to his breast, and pressed a lover’s passionate kiss on her yielding and responsive lips.
Faint with excess of joy, she lay still in his passionate clasp. Oh, the sweetness of that moment! Could she ever forget it? There rushed over her all the love songs, all the poetry she had ever read; but it seemed to the girl that all were tame in their descriptions of happy love. Perhaps it was beyond description. She felt quite sure that she herself could never have found words strong enough in which to describe the indescribable rapture of that moment when she leaned, blushing and palpitating, upon her lover’s breast, with his lips on hers, and his arms clasping her so close, so tight, while between passionate kisses he called her, “Love, darling, wife!”