[CHAPTER III.]
THREATENED SEPARATION.
The rainbow dies in heaven, and not on earth;
But love can never die: from world to world,
Up the high wheel of heaven, it lives for aye.
Adèle was in despair. By that evening's post a letter had arrived from her mother. Mrs. Churchill was on her way to Scarborough, and her niece was travelling with her. They were sleeping at York that night. On the following day they would call for Adèle at Middlethorpe, and take her on with them. Again and again the date of her return to her mother's care had been deferred, in obedience to her wishes repeatedly and earnestly expressed.
Mrs. Churchill, always indulgent to what she looked upon as Adèle's whims, had in consequence spent the month of September in Brighton, but her forbearance would extend no further. It was high time, she thought, that her daughter's absurd seclusion should come to an end. Her letter was written in a very decided manner. She wished to leave no loophole for excuse or further delay.
It seemed to Adèle that the announcement had come just at the wrong time. In the long, heart-sickening anxiety of suspense, Margaret's strength was failing, and the young girl knew she was her chief comfort and help. She trembled to think how the much-tried endurance of her friend might fail if she were thrown suddenly on her own resources.
And Margaret had been given into her care by Arthur. The patient fulfilling of her task was a pledge of her love. It was not a hard task, for Adèle's affection, which had partaken of the fervid nature of passion in the admiration of her young heart for Margaret's beauty, in the pity which had arisen on that first day of their meeting at the sight of her distress, had taken perhaps a calmer tone during these weeks of close intimacy, but withal a much deeper and firmer root.
Adèle loved her friend so truly that she would willingly have sacrificed any happiness of her own for her good, and the idea of leaving her, of returning to the old rounds of tedious gayety, of knowing that in her absence the strong, brave heart was failing, the weakened spirit was giving way, even when the end might be very near, made her heart ache and throb.