There was a long and most painful silence. Flora was wounded to the quick, and that by a hand that she loved. Blinded by her affection, she regarded Sir Amery with an enthusiastic admiration which could see no fault, a tender devotion which would have regarded the sacrifice of life itself but a small one for his sake. Every fibre of her loving heart seemed to have twined itself round its new idol, and to breathe even a slighting word of him was to wrench and lacerate those tender heart-strings. She again buried her face, but this time it was not on the bosom of her mother.
"Mamma, you know not how wretched you make me with your doubts!"
"My child--my own child--I would give my life's blood to render you happy!" Mrs. Vernon took the cold hand of Flora, and pressed it convulsively to her heart. "But I cannot--I dare not--trust you to one who is not treading the same path towards heaven: I cannot--dare not--let you break the command which bids our unions be 'only in the Lord.'"
"You will refuse your consent?" exclaimed Flora, starting to her feet, and gazing on her mother with a look of wild dismay.
"Oh, God help me!--God guide me!" murmured the unhappy parent, pressing her hand tightly over her brow.
"You will refuse your consent?" repeated Flora, more wildly and passionately than before. "Mother, mother! you know not what you are doing!--you may break my heart, you may lay me in my grave; but"--her manner suddenly changed to one of clinging, confiding affection, as she sank at the feet of her mother, and looked imploringly up into her face--"but you will not, dear mother, you will not; you will let us be happy together. When you see him--when you know him--all these terrible doubts will pass quite away; you will look on him as I look--you will love him: only wait till he comes--till to-morrow."
"To-morrow! is he coming?" gasped the lady.
"Mother, dearest mother, you are trembling!"
"Oh, this is a very, very bitter cup! God give me strength to drink it," exclaimed the widow.
"He will bring sunshine with him; he will plead his own cause--"