Colonel de St. Severan made some remonstrance, but as Flora—after saying a few words to her mother—looked up in his face, he saw that she was scarcely able to stand, and quickly drawing her hand within his arm, he took her at once to the carriage, and desired Marie's maid to go with her to the hotel.
When they arrived there, Flora thanked the maid for having left the gay scene to accompany her, desired the coachman to drive her back, and slowly went upstairs.
That wedding had been, indeed, too much for her. She only just reached the sofa in time to save herself from falling; feebly she loosened the strings of her light tulle bonnet, and let it drop unheeded upon the floor, and murmured, "Edwin! if I could only see you once more, and you would believe in me, I should die happy! But perhaps he has ceased to be angry with me—ceased even to think of me! Yet no, he is not one likely to forget; it was not forgetfulness that made him so cruel as not even to acknowledge the receipt of my letter. Ah! how differently he felt when he gave me this!"
Flora took from the little table beside her a beautifully bound and illustrated edition of Schiller's "William Tell," and sought out that scene between Rudenz and Bertha, the opening lines of which were so imprinted on her heart that she needed not a book to recall them to her memory; yet she loved to read them over and over again, out of his present, and dream of the happy evening when he spoke them to her.
To-day, however, as she came to the last line, she burst into a fit of sobbing, and the page became wet with her tears. At length, exhausted by her own emotion, she fell asleep....
Meanwhile, Mr. Earnscliffe had travelled post-haste, or rather steam-haste, from Naples. He reached Marseilles late on Thursday evening, and the following night he took possession of his old Paris quarters, in the Rue Castiglione—the Hotel de Londres.
That night seemed to him an eternity—an eternity which separated him from the object of all his hopes. Vainly he tried to still the beating of his heart, so as to consider calmly what he should do in the morning. Should he go at once to Mrs. Adair, or should he write to her?
But neither of these plans pleased him,—he could not think of anything to say or to write to Mrs. Adair, nor indeed of aught save Flora herself; and thinking of her put every other thought to flight, for it conjured up visions which made him feel hot and cold by turns, as they varied from bright to dark and dark to bright.
Thus the night dragged through, and morning found him still more feverish and incapable of forming any definite idea of how he was to get over the interview with Mrs. Adair. He had quite discarded the idea of writing—and knew not how to reach Flora's presence; but see her he must, and as soon as possible, for he could bear this suspense no longer.
He, of course, knew nothing of the change about Marie's wedding, and naturally supposed that the Adairs would certainly be at home about ten in the morning. Much after this his impatience would not permit him to wait.