Then, with a start, she woke, for there lay a white envelope.
She took it up and gazed at it, turning it over and over, a dull, heavy disappointment weighing upon her, and examined the address, and the elaborate crest stamped on the back.
“Then it was not so romantic or foolish,” she murmured, sorrowfully. “He is not coming!”
She sank down upon the bank, and looked before her with a vacant air, the envelope still unopened. “Not coming! Not coming!” It was like the announcement of some terrible calamity.
Then, suddenly, hope sprang into her bosom.
“He has written to tell me why he cannot come,” she said to herself, and the color rushed back into her face. “Yes, that is it! He has been prevented—his uncle, the marquis! Something has prevented him, and he has just written to tell me when he can come, and when I shall see him.”
She tore the envelope open, and something fell upon the grass. She leaned forward and picked it up; it was the old pearl-silver ring she had given to him.
She looked at it, turning it over with a vague aching sense of disappointment and trouble.
“My ring!” she murmured, “my ring! Now, what does this mean?” then her face brightened. “Ah, yes, he has sent it to remind me of yesterday!”
Eagerly she opened the letter, and her lovely eyes seemed to devour it; but as she read they grew dim and hazy, and she swept her hand across them with an impatient gesture.