Good-bye to those few transcendental moments, good-bye to the moonlight on the water, the scent of orange-flowers, and all the appropriate surroundings to a love-tale! Say good-bye to Gilbert Lisle and love's young dream, Helen Denis, and go quietly down the hill with Mrs. Creery's heavy arm firmly locked in yours.
The two gentlemen followed in dead silence. Dr. Parkes was infinitely diverted with this little scene; he had been young himself, and it did not need the light of his own past experience to tell him, that this good-looking, impecunious fellow beside him had been trying his hand at making love to the island belle; but Mrs. Creery was a deal too sharp for him, and on the whole, "though he was evidently a gentleman," casting a glance at his companion's aristocratic profile and erect, rather soldierly figure, he considered that it was a deuced piece of cheek for him to think of making up to Helen Denis! Alas! little did Dr. Parkes and the careful matron in his van, guess that they were merely carrying away the key of the stable, the steed (meaning the young lady's heart) had been stolen long ago.
As to Mr. Lisle's thoughts, the reader can easily imagine them—disgust, impatience, rage were the least of them. How was he to get another word with Helen? How was he to have a chance of seeing Colonel Denis? Oh! rash and fatal promise that he had made that afternoon. When the ladies all emerged, shawled and cloaked from the mess-room verandah, he made one bold effort to walk home with his fiancée; but every one was leaving simultaneously, and they all descended in one compact body, Dr. Malone escorting Miss Denis on one side, and Captain Rodney on the other; while her accepted lover walked alone behind, and angrily gnawed his moustache. However, he was the last to bid her good-bye, he even went a few paces down the little walk; meanwhile from the high road a crowd looked on—and waited! This was a trying ordeal, and Dr. Parkes' voice was heard shouting impatiently,—
"Now then, Lisle! if you are coming in my boat, look sharp, will you, there's a good fellow?"
He felt a fierce desire to throttle the little doctor! Moments to him were more precious than diamonds, and what was half an hour more or less to a dried-up old fogey like that?
He stopped for a second under the palm-trees, and whispered,—
"I'll come over to-morrow early; I mean this morning, if I may, and if I can possibly manage it; if not, good-bye, darling—our first and last good-bye. I shall be back in six weeks," and then he wrung her hand and went. (A more tender leave-taking was out of the question, in the searching glare of the moonlight, and under the batteries of forty pairs of eyes.)
Poor, ignorant Colonel Denis! who was standing within three yards, little guessed what Gilbert Lisle was whispering to his daughter; indeed, he was not aware that he had been whispering at all! nor that here was a robber who wished to carry off his treasure—his all—his one ewe lamb.
No, this guileless, unsuspicious gentleman, nodded a friendly "good night" to the thief, and went slowly yawning up the steps, then, turning round, said sleepily,—
"Well, and how did my little girl enjoy herself?"