CHAPTER XIII.
A SWEET CONFESSION.
Viola darted forward with a stifled cry, and knelt by the silent, recumbent figure.
She saw that a few drops of blood had started from a small cut on his white temple, and guessed that in falling he had struck his head against the corner of the flower-stand, thus rendering him momentarily unconscious.
All the womanly tenderness in her started with grief at the sight, and dipping her lace handkerchief, already wet with tears, into a glass globe that held some beautiful gold fish, she began to bathe his face with the cold water, murmuring agitatedly to herself:
“I must try to revive him myself, for I should not like to call for help. The situation would be rather embarrassing. They would only say I was here flirting with him, and wonder why he fell down, and at the tears on my cheeks.”
And she dabbled his face and fair hair most energetically with the cold water, her soft hands touching him caressingly, freighted with the love that filled her heart.
And her fair face bent so close to his in her anxiety that the salty drops of pity fell on his brow and mixed with the cold water she was so copiously using as a restorative.
Then she began to get frightened.
“Why, how long he is in reviving! It must be more serious than I thought!” she cried, anxiously; adding: “I am afraid I must call help; but I will wait a minute longer.”
It was enough to frighten her, that deathly stillness and pallor of the handsome man, and she sobbed:
“Oh, what if this should be death? I have heard that a blow on the temple might cause death. And here is quite a keen little cut. I—I wish that I could kiss it and make it well, as mothers say to their little children.”
She mopped his face again with the water, she chafed his cold hands again in hers with a tenderness that was enough to call a dead man back to life, but still he lay there mute and pale, arousing her worst fears.
She began to pray in a low, whispering voice full of pathos:
“Oh, God, do not be so cruel as to let him die! Give him back to me! He is the only man in the world that I could love! Perhaps that is why you will let him die—to punish me for my wicked flirtations when I did not know what a pain love was—real love that aches in my heart for him, though he despises me. And no wonder, for he is a thousand times too good for me, and could never love me because I have been so vain and silly, for of course he could not know how I have repented now. Oh, God, spare him, don’t let him die—don’t let him die!”
It was enough to move angels to pity, the low, whispering voice, the tears, the clasped hands; but Heaven seemed deaf to her prayer, for the lids still lay heavily on Desha’s eyes, and she could not see his broad chest move with the faintest breath.
Her heart sank with a terrible alarm, and she murmured, wildly:
“I must summon help!”
But just as she was rising from her knees, she saw his eyelids move, then flutter languidly open.
“Oh,” she murmured, in a tremor of joy and thanksgiving, and his large blue eyes gazed languidly into her own.
“Viola!” he murmured, in a soft voice freighted with ecstasy, and she started at the sound of her name from his lips.
“Oh, you are better!” she exclaimed, gladly, her voice trembling with the joy of her heart. “May I help you to rise?” holding out her little hands.
He accepted the proffered aid most eagerly, and when he had risen to his feet, retained the little hands, and drew her suddenly to his heart.
“Viola, don’t shrink away from me!” he cried, ardently. “I love you, darling—have loved you hopelessly for months, but just now as I was coming back to consciousness, I thought I was in Heaven, for I heard low, whispered words from your dear lips—a prayer for my life, a confession that I was dear to you. Oh, Viola, is it indeed true? Am I so blest as to hold a place in your heart? Will you be kind to me? Will you be my wife?”
“I love you, Philip!” sobbed the agitated girl, hiding her face on his breast, and trembling at the ardent kiss he pressed on her quivering, crimson lips.