With an almost superhuman effort Barbara drew herself up and smiled bravely, with white lips:—
"It is nothing—only a moment's dizziness. It is all over now."
This was what Mr. Sumner saw when he sprang up in alarm, and then in a moment said: "Everything seems all right now."
But poor Barbara thought nothing could ever be right again. And when their carriage drew up in the spacious courtyard of their hotel at Sorrento, and Mr. Sumner, with an unusually bright and eager face, stood waiting to help her alight, it was a frozen little hand that was put into his, and he could not win a single glance from the eyes he loved to watch, and from which he was impatient to learn if it were indeed well with the owner.
To this day Barbara shudders at the thought or mention of the next four or five days. And they were such rare days for enjoyment, could she have forgotten her own heart:—across the blue waters to Capri, with a visit by the way to the famous Blue Grotto; a whole day in that lovely town, walking about its winding, climbing streets; the long drive from Sorrento to quaint Prajano, with, on one hand, towering, rugged limestone cliffs, to whose rough sides, every here and there, clings an Italian village, and, on the other, the smiling, wide-spreading Mediterranean; the little rowboat ride to Amalfi; the day full of interest spent there; and then the drive close beside the sea toward Palermo, terminated by a sharp turn toward the blue mountains among which nestles La Cava; the railway ride back to Naples.
She struggled bravely to be her old self,—to hide everything from all eyes. But she felt so wofully humiliated, for she now knew for the first time that she loved Robert Sumner; loved him so that it was positive agony to think that he might love another,—so that it was almost a pain to remember that he had ever loved. What would he think should he suspect the truth! And she was so fearful that her eyes might give a hint of it that, try in as many ways as he could, Mr. Sumner could never get a good look into them during these days. The kinder he was, and the more zealously he endeavored to add to her comfort and happiness, the more wretched she grew. She longed to get away from everybody, even from Betty, lest her secret might become apparent to the keen sisterly affection that knew her so intimately. She began to feel a fierce longing for home and for father and mother; and the months which must necessarily elapse before she could be there stretched drearily before her.
Robert Sumner was perplexed and distressed. He had just begun to enjoy a certain happiness. The struggle within himself was over, and he was beginning to give himself up to the delight of thinking freely of Barbara; of loving her; of feeling a sort of possession of her, though he did not yet dream of such a thing as ever being to her more than he now was,—a valued friend. There were so many years, and an experience of life that counted far more than years, between them!
He had listened to his sister's conversation with Miss Sherman on the way from Pompeii to Sorrento with an exultation which it would have been difficult for him to account for. He gloried in the sweet unselfishness, the simple goodness of the young girl. "My little Barbara," his heart sang; and full of this emotion when they reached Sorrento, he allowed the two ladies to go alone into the hotel, while he waited impatiently to look into Barbara's face and to feel the touch of her hand.
But what a change! What could have wrought it? Before this, she had always met his look with such frank sympathy! As the days passed on without change, and his eyes, more than any others, noticed the struggle to conceal her unhappiness, the mystery deepened.