The why was in Adèle's heart that evening, welling up from its innermost depths, proving itself too strong and terrible for her young brain to fathom. And still she sat there, her arms folded and her pale face looking seaward, thinking, thinking.
Once or twice she turned to look at her companion. Margaret was on the sofa. For the first time since that attack of brain-fever which had so terrified her devoted nurses she was dressed, and her dress was of the soft, pale material which Maurice loved.
They had been afraid of the fatigue, for Margaret was very ill. Emotion, anxiety, suspense had told upon her to such a degree that at last her life had been despaired of.
For three days her mind had been wandering. Such strange, pathetic wandering it was that often and often tears had poured down the cheeks of those who watched over her. But early in this evening her senses seemed suddenly to return. There came a light into her eyes; she sat up and looked round her. And then she insisted upon being dressed and taken into the little parlor. They could not refuse her, though the old woman shook her head ominously. "It's well to be seen," she whispered to Adèle, "what the end of it a' will be. Puir leddie!" and she wiped her eyes, "the sair heart hae dune it. Humor her bit fancies, bairnie; 'twill be the same, ony gait."
Weeping in spite of herself, Adèle obeyed the old nurse. They dressed Margaret with minute care, combed the waving hair—short now, alas!—from her white forehead, put on her the trailing lavender-colored dress and the pretty lace ruffles, wrapped the Indian scarf round her shoulders, and laid her down, exhausted but happy, on the parlor sofa.
She thanked them with her gentle smile, gave a sigh of intense contentment; then, after a few moments, fell into a quiet, healthy sleep.
It was this sleep which Adèle had been watching in the dark room until, so quiet and peaceful had been the sleeper's face, the tension on her watcher's nerves was partially relaxed. She turned from that earnest gazing at the pale face, so beautiful in its pure outlines, to look at the outside world—to think and dream and hope. For in the heart of the young hope is ever rampant. It is only when years of experience have shown hope's futility that the radiant companion forsakes the soul. Forsakes! Ah, in thousands of instances scarcely forsakes—rather takes a higher ground, shows a larger prospect. In the dreariness of wintry age hope is still busy, gilding not the transitory here, but the lasting beyond.
Adèle had not reached that stage of experience. Her young heart, though ready at times to look forward even to that shadowy beyond, was yet very busy with the here, the sweet earthly happiness which all young humanity is earnestly craving.
That evening there seemed very little to feed her persistent hopefulness. Another day and yet another, with no line from Arthur, the consciousness of his devotion, of his thoughtful affection, making his silence the more strange and ominous; winter in its dreary desolation looking in at her from sea and land, telling loudly of the difficulty—even perhaps the danger—of travelling; the life of her friend waning, passing in its miserable famine of all that makes a woman's joy. These were the gloomy thoughts with which the hopefulness of the young soul struggled that evening.