FOR HIM ALONE.
Doris went home, her heart throbbing with an emotion which was half pain, half joy.
Lord Cecil Neville had asked her to meet him to-morrow. “I promise nothing!” she had said, and when she said it she fully meant that she would not come; and yet, now, as she walked hurriedly to the lodgings, she knew that when the morrow arrived, she would feel drawn to the spot as the steel is drawn to the magnet.
But if she had promised nothing, he had promised. He had said that he would be at the theatre that night, and she remembered how her heart had leaped at his words; even now they rang sweetly in her ears.
Heaven only knows with what delight she dwelt upon the thought that he would be present, listening to her as she spoke the passion-laden words of Juliet.
All this was joy, but the pain came on. Alas, that all our joy should be attended so closely by that grim companion.
“Love’s feet are softly shod with pain.”
says the poet.
For the first time in her young life she had a secret from Jeffrey. It had been difficult to tell him yesterday of her acquaintance with Lord Cecil Neville; she felt now that it would be impossible to tell him, for she knew that she could not recount the incidents of their meeting without letting him know how interested she had become in this young nobleman, whose head had rested on her knee, and whose face haunted her night and day.
And she knew that once she had told Jeffrey, he would forbid her even to see or speak to Lord Neville again. And this seemed too dreadful for her to bear.