She smiled. “Little doubt of that, I think.”
“Thank you! And now I will say good-night,” observed Harold, rising.
Ere he went, however, he looked down curiously into Olive's face.
“You seem quite strong and well now, Miss Rothesay. You have been happy here?”
“Happy—oh, yes! quite happy.”
“I thought it would be so—I was right! Though still—But I am glad, very glad to hear it. Good-night.”
He shook her hand—an easy, careless shake; not the close, lingering clasp—how different they were! Then he went quickly up-stairs to his chamber.
But hour after hour sped; the darkness changed to dawn, the dawn to light, and still Olive lay sleepless. Her heart, stirred from its serenity, again swayed miserably to and fro. Vainly she argued with herself on her folly in giving way to these emotions; counting over, even in pitiful scorn, the years that she had past her youth.
“Three more, and I shall be a woman of thirty. Yet here I lie, drowning my pillow with tears, like a love-sick girl. Oh that this trouble had visited me long ago, that I might have risen up from it like the young grass after rain! But now it falls on me like an autumn storm—it tears me, it crushes me; I shall never, never rise.”
When it was broad daylight, she roused herself, bathed her brow in water, shut out the sunbeams from her hot, aching eyes, and then lay down again and slept.