Ah, how she gazed on him, what longing question there was in her eyes!
He took from his breast a velvet case which might have held a miniature, but did not.
"Look—look," he prayed, "at this. Tis a dead rose."
"A rose!" says she, and then starts and looks up from it to him, a dawning of some thought—or hope—in her face. "A rose!" she uttered, scarcely breathing it, as if half afraid to speak.
"Ah!" he cried, "I pray God you remember. When it fell from your breast that night——"
She broke in, breathless, "The night you came——"
"Too late—too late," he answered; "and this fell at my feet, and you passed by. No night since then I have not pressed it to my lips. No day it has not lain upon my heart through all its darkest hours."
She took it from him—gazed down at it with stormy, filling eyes, and pressing it to her lips, broke into tender, passionate sobbing.
"No night, no day!" she cried. "Poor rose! dear rose!"
"Beloved!" he cried, and would have folded her to his breast, kissing her tears away which were so womanly. But she withdrew herself a little—holding up her hand.