"At any rate, let us go in. Do you return by the shrubbery. I will go round by the garden."
CHAPTER XVII.
THE SACRIFICE.
I know I love in vain—strive against hope—
Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
I still pour out the waters of my love,
And lack not to love still.
SHAKSPEARE.—All's Well that Ends Well.
When Cecil re-entered the drawing-room, he found it exactly as he had left it, except that Tom Wincot was playing whist in place of Captain Heath, who stood leaning against the mantelpiece, with his left hand caressing the shaggy head of Shot; that favoured animal stood with his fore-paws resting on the fender, and his face raised inquiringly, as if to ascertain the reason of his friend's paleness. Pale, indeed, was the handsome face of that brave, sorrowing man; and the keen sympathy of the hound had read in its rigidity and calmness the signs of suffering, which escaped the notice of every one else. True it is that the captain somewhat shielded his face from observation by, with his left hand, twirling his moustache, a practice too habitual with him to call forth any remark.
Cecil was in such a state of excitement, that the girls remarked it. He joked, laughed joyously at the most trivial observation, sang with prodigious fervour, and declared there was nothing like a moonlight ramble for the cure of the heartburn.
"It seems to have been the heart-ache," said Rose, "by the exuberance of your spirits after the cure."
Cecil looked up, and seeing her saucy smile, and her eyes swimming in laughter, knew that she was not serious, so he asked what should make his heart ache?
"Ay, ay," said Vyner, "what, indeed? quo beatus vulnere? If you have discovered, let us hear it."
"Yes, yes, tell us his secwet by all means," said Wincot, throwing down his last card; "two by honours, thwee by twicks—game—that makes a single, a tweble, and the wub: six points!"