But after a grievous week, that blessed sunshine did come. The corn rose up from its low estate, looked at the sun, gathered heart, and began to ripen diligently.
But Alec was very ill, and did not see Kate for weeks.
Through his wanderings—so strangely does the thousand times o'erwritten palimpsest of the brain befool the mind and even the passions by the redawning of old traces—he talked on about Annie and their schooldays with Mr Malison, and never mentioned Kate.
Annie went often to inquire after him, and Mrs Forbes behaved to her with her old kindness—just a little diluted by anxiety and the possession of Kate.
When Annie thought with herself what she could do for him, she could never think of anything except saying sangs to him. But the time for that was long gone by. So, like many other devotions, hers found no outlet but in asking how he was.
At length, one day, he was brought down to the dining-room and laid upon the sofa. Then for the first time since his illness he saw Kate, He looked in her face pitifully and kissed her hand. She put her face down to his. The blood surged up into his cheek, and the light into his eyes, and he murmured:
"That is worth being ill for, Kate. I would be ill again for that."
She could only say hush, and then kiss him again, lest he should be hurt, thinking with a soundless sigh:
"I shall be forced to marry him some day."
And he was neither her own virgin-born ideal; nor had his presence the power to beget another and truer ideal in her brain.