"Perhaps he does not know how deeply you feel for him," said Robert, anxious to console her.
Florence shook her head, and leaning forward, shrouded her eyes with one hand. After a while, she turned her gaze upon Robert, and addressed him more quietly.
"You must not think ill of him," she said, with a dim smile. "See what suspicion and pining thoughts can do, when they have crept into the heart." The poor girl drew up the muslin sleeve from her arm, and Robert was startled to see how greatly the delicate limb was attenuated. Tears came into his eyes, and bending down he touched the snowy wrist with his lips. "I must tell him that you are ill—that you suffer—surely he cannot dream of this!"
"Not yet—we must not importune him; besides, I am becoming used to this desolate feeling. You will come oftener now. It is something to know that he has been near you—touched your clothes—held your hand—the atmosphere of his presence hangs about your very garments, and does me good. This seems childish, does it not? but it is true. Sometime, when you have given up your being to another, this will appear less strange. Oh, how I sometimes envy you!"
"I might have loved, young as you think me, even as you love this man," said Robert, annoyed, spite of his sympathy, by the words which she had unconsciously applied to his youth; "but that which has wounded you, saved me. You do not know, Miss Craft, all that I have felt since the evening when Mr. Leicester brought me here. What I saw that night awoke me from the first sweet dream of passion I ever knew. I could have loved you then, even as you loved Mr. Leicester."
"Me!" said Florence, and a momentary smile lighted her eyes—as if the very thought of his young love amused her, sad as she was; "how strange! to me you seemed so young and embarrassed—a mere boy—now——"
"Now I am changed, you would say—now I am a different person—older, firmer, more self-possessed; yet it is only a few months ago. I may seem older and less timid—for in this little time I have thought and suffered—but then, I was more worthy of your love, for I had not learned to distrust my oldest friend. Like you, I have struggled against suspicion—and like you, I have failed to cast it forth. It has withered your gentle nature—mine it has embittered."
"Ah! but you had not my temptation. It was not his own mother who poisoned your mind against him."
"His mother? I did not know that either of his parents were living."
"That quiet, cold lady; the woman whom you have seen here! Did he never tell you that she was his mother?"