They raised her from the ground and took her to her room. One kinder than the others sat by her until the dawn, when the dark eyes opened with a look in them which was never to die away again.
"This is the first of July," she said, faintly.
And the maid, seeing that the morning had dawned, said:
"Yes, it is July."
She never attempted to rise that day, but lay with her face turned to the wall, turned from the sunlight and the birds' song, the bloom of flowers, the ripple of leaves, the warmth and light of the summer, thinking only of the mill-stream and the words that for her had so terrible a prophecy:
"A ring in pledge I gave her,
And vows of love we spoke—
Those vows are all forgotten,
The ring asunder broke."
Over and over again they rang through her brain and her heart, while she fought against them, while she lay trying to deaden her senses, to stifle her reason, doing deadly battle with the fears that assailed her. She would not give in; she would not doubt him; there would come to her in time some knowledge; she should know why he had failed.
Failed, oh, God! how hard the word was to say—failed. Why, if every star in the sky had fallen at her feet it would not have seemed so wonderful.
Perhaps his mother—that proud, haughty woman, who seemed to trample the world under her feet—perhaps she had prevented his coming; but he would come, no matter what the mill-stream said, no matter what his mother wished. The day passed and the morrow came—the second of July. She rose on that day and went down-stairs the shadow of her former self—pale, cold, and silent. She did not say to herself "He will come to-day," hope was dying within her. Then at noon came the letter—her maid brought it in. She gave a low cry of delight when she saw the beloved handwriting, that was followed by a cry of pain. He would not have written if he had been coming; that he had written proved that he had no intention of coming. She took the letter, but she dared not trust herself to open it in the presence of her maid; but when the girl was gone, as there was no human eye to rest on the tortured face she could not control, she opened it.
Deadly cold seemed to seize her; a deadly shudder made the letter fall from her hands.