Drusilla bathed her eyes and face, and combed her hair, and dressed herself as tastefully as if she had slept through a happy night and waked to a gladsome morning.
And she went down stairs to see to the breakfast. The cozy drawing-room, the bright fire, the clean hearth, the neat table, all the accessories of her sweet home, and, above all, the clear sunshiny morning, early harbinger of spring, cheered her spirits and inspired more hopeful thoughts than had been hers on the evening previous.
“Alick loved me from my childhood,” she said, “and chose me freely for his wife from all others that he might have had. And he is very good to me. He spoke gently to me even last night. Perhaps he is not so weary of me as I think. Perhaps he loves me still. And my doubts come only from my own fancies. Oh, Heaven grant that it may be so. I will see how he will meet me this morning. But, oh! if I should be so keen to note every word and look that he gives me, or don’t give me, how ill I should requite his love. Shall I turn jealous fool, and watch my Alick as if he were a foe to be suspected, and not my dear husband to be loved and trusted to the last? No, Alick, dear, no; I will do you no such wrong. I know I’m a big little fool, but not such a one as that, either. What if he did leave me last night. Perhaps he needed to be very quiet, after so much excitement as he has had these two nights. I am sure, I am so nervous sometimes that I cannot bear a movement or a ray of light in my room, and why should he not be subject to the same moods, even if he is a strong man? Come, I will trust my husband, as well as love him.”
This reaction of feeling, brought about mostly by the blessed sunshine of morning and the benign influence of home, called back the color to the young wife’s cheeks and the light to her eyes.
Alexander came down earlier than usual. And she arose from her seat to receive his morning kiss.
But she did not get it. He passed her, and dropped into his chair, and said:
“Ring for breakfast, Drusa. I must get off to town sooner by an hour this morning.”
With a suppressed sigh, she pulled the bell; and when Pina appeared, she ordered breakfast to be served immediately.
Alexander was thoughtful even to gloom. He had to break to Drusilla the news of his intended sudden departure. And he dreaded to do it, and he did not know how to begin.
The morning meal was served. They sat down to the table. Drusilla poured out the coffee, and, in handing her husband his cup, she said: