“I declare he will be late again; this is the third time he has come back from the boat,” exclaimed Miss Grainger, as Florence sank, half fainting, into Emily’s arms.
“Yes, yes, dear Joseph,” muttered Emily, “go now, go at once, before she recovers again.”
“If I do not, I never can,” cried he, as the tears coursed down his face, while he hurried away.
The monotonous beat of the oars suddenly startled the half-conscious girl; she looked up, and lifted her hand to wave an adieu, and then sank back into her sister’s arms, and fainted.
Three days after, a few hurried lines from Loyd told Florence that he had sailed for Malta—this time irrevocably off. They were as sad lines to read as to have written. He had begun by an attempt at jocularity; a sketch of his fellow-travellers coming on board; their national traits, and the strange babble of tongues about them; but, as the bell rang, he dropped this, and scrawled out, as best he could, his last and blotted good-byes. They were shaky, ill-written words, and might, who knows, have been blurred with a tear or two. One thing is certain, she who read, shed many over them, and kissed them, with her last waking breath, as she fell asleep.
About the same day that this letter reached Florence, came another, and very different epistle, to the hands of Algernon Drayton, from his friend Calvert It was not above a dozen lines, and dated from Alexandria:
“The Leander has just steamed in, crowded with snobs, civil
and military, but no Loyd. The fellow must have given up his
appointment or gone ‘long sea.’ In any case, he has escaped
me. I am frantic. A whole month’s plottings of vengeance
scattered to the winds and lost! I’d return to England,
if I were only certain to meet with him: but a Faquir, whom
I have just consulted, says, ‘Go east, and the worst will
come of it!’ and so I start in two hours for Suez. There
are two here who know me, but I mean to caution them how
they show it; they are old enough to take a hint.
“Yours, H. C.
“I hear my old regiment has mutinied, and sabred eight of
the officers. I wish they’d have waited a little longer, and
neither S. nor W. would have got off so easily. From all I
can learn, and from the infernal fright the fellows who are
going back exhibit, I suspect that the work goes bravely
on.”
CHAPTER XVIII. TIDINGS FROM BENGAL.
I am not about to chronicle how time now rolled over the characters of our story. As for the life of those at the villa, nothing could be less eventful All existences that have any claim to be called happy are of this type, and if there be nothing brilliant or triumphant in their joys, neither is there much poignancy in their sorrows.