"No," she answered. "And yet I have something else to say to you. Will you remember that some other day?"
"Indeed, I shall remember," he said, fervently. And then the boys burst into the room, and in the hubbub of their arrival Elizabeth escaped.
Her violets had fallen out of her brooch. Brian found them upon the floor when she had gone; henceforth he kept them amongst his treasures.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE WISHING WELL.
Hugo's first call at Strathleckie was made on the day following Mr. Stretton's arrival. Father Cristoforo's letter had been delivered by that morning's post, and it was during a stroll, in which, to tell the truth, Brian was more absorbed by the thought of Elizabeth than by any remembrance of his own position or of the Prior's views, that he dropped the letter of which the contents had so important a bearing on his future life. In justice to Brian, it must be urged that he had no idea that the Prior's letter was likely to be of any importance. Ever since he left San Stefano, the Prior had corresponded with him; but his letters were generally on very trivial subjects, or filled with advice upon moral and doctrinal points, which Brian could not find interesting. The severe animadversions upon his folly in returning to Scotland under an assumed name, which filled the first sheet, did not rouse in him any lively desire to read the rest of the letter. It was not likely to contain anything that he ought to know; and, at any rate, he could explain the loss and apologise for it in his next note to Padre Cristoforo.
The meeting between him and Elizabeth in the garden, which had been such a revelation to Hugo's mind, was purely accidental and led to no great result. She had been begged by the children to ask Mr. Stretton for a holiday. They wanted to go to a Wishing Well in the neighbourhood, and to have a picnic in honour of Kitty's birthday. Mr. Stretton was sure not to refuse them they said—if Elizabeth asked. And Mr. Stretton did not refuse.
His love for Elizabeth—that love which had sprung into being almost as soon as he beheld her, and which had grown with every hour spent in her company—was one of those deep and overmastering passions which a man can feel but once in a lifetime, and which many men never feel at all. If Brian had lived his life in London and at Netherglen with no great shock, no terrible grief, no overthrow of all his hopes, he might not have experienced this glow and thrill of passionate emotion; he might have walked quietly into love, made a suitable marriage, and remained ignorant to his life's end of the capabilities for emotion which existed within him. But, as often happens immediately after the occurrence of a great sorrow or recovery from a serious illness, his whole being seemed to undergo a change. When the strain of anxiety and prolonged anguish of mind was relaxed, the claims of youth re-asserted themselves. With returning health and strength there came an almost passionate determination to enjoy as much as remained to be enjoyed in life. The sunshine, the wind, the sea, the common objects of Nature,
"To him were opening Paradise."