Reaching the garden he knows so well and loves so fondly, he walks with eager, longing steps toward a side path where usually she he seeks is to be found. Now standing still, he looks round anxiously for Cecilia.
But Cecilia is not there!
CHAPTER XXVIII.
"Lys.—How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
Her.—Belike, for want of rain, which I could well
Between them from the tempest of mine eyes."
—Midsummer Night's Dream.
Up in her chamber sits Cecilia, speechless, spell-bound, fighting with a misery too great for tears. Upon her knee lies an open letter from which an enclosure has slipped and fallen to the ground. And on this last her eyes, scorched and distended, are fixed hopelessly.