"The wood," she said, "has had pity on me; those are its tears."
She could not make up her mind to go in to Cara; she felt as though she could not bear her affection. Cara wept in her father's arms. He dried the tears she was shedding for her sister, and spoke to her tenderly. Lotty clenched her fists.
"She shall not have him as long as I live."
Henceforward Doris went often into the wood, especially along the path beside the old willow-trees. The sun still shone warmly there, and that did good to Doris, who could not get rid of a feeling of cold. Once she leaned exhausted against a mighty trunk; she had laid her hand upon her aching heart, and closed her eyes. Suddenly she heard a voice close by her, whose tone made her shrink together as a flower does in spring rain—
"Doris."
And there stood Albert, with the same lovely eyes, the same charm of movement, and yet how changed. He held out his hand towards her. She laid her icy fingertips into his; but when she wanted to draw back her hand he retained it.
"Am I to be condemned unheard?" he asked gently, and smiled so sweetly that Doris could not be as distant and cold as she had resolved.
He did not wait for an answer, but spoke eagerly and earnestly, accused and defended himself at the same time, reminded her of their sweet love that could not possibly be vanished and fled; ay, he read it in her face that she had thought of him, while poor Doris, now red, now pale, could merely look at him. When he turned to go to the house and greet his aunt, she remained outside, for an awkward friend, Conscience, told her that she had not been all that her parents expected.
They did not repeat their injunction, and the meetings in the park grew more and more frequent; a correspondence even ensued that was intrusted to a hollow willow. Doris's mother noticed a strange, wild look in the girl's eyes, but she put this down to the struggle her child was undergoing.