“Think of the past, Lucy, as of happy days spent with one who loved you, and who is now dead. Better that we should never meet again. Better, perhaps, if I had never lived. God bless you, dear. Good-bye.”
Poor Lucy was too ill to appear at dinner that day, and for several more she did not stir out. Then Mrs Alleyne insisted upon her going for a walk, and, as if drawn by fate, she went straight toward the fir mount to climb to the top, where she could sit down and gaze at Brackley, and try to make out Glynne, who might be walking in the garden.
No: she saw no tall white figure there, and she felt that unless she borrowed some “optick tube” from her brother’s observatory, she was not likely to see her friend a mile away, and she stood there low-spirited and tearful.
“If I could only see her, and say,—‘Glynne, sister, what is all that terrible trouble to us? You are still the only friend I ever loved,’ and clasp her in my arms, and let her tears mingle with mine. Oh, please God,” she said, softly, speaking like a little child, as she sank upon her knees amongst the thickly-shed pine needles, and clasped her hands, “let there be no more sorrow for my poor, dear friend; make her happy once again.”
That fir-clad hill became Lucy’s favourite resort by day, as it had been her brother’s in the past, by night; and she went again and again, till one afternoon, following out an old habit, she was stooping to pick a plant from where it grew, when she became aware of someone approaching, and she started and coloured, and then recovered herself, and rose erect and slightly resentful, for Major Day, looking very sad and old stood before her, raising his hat.
“May I see what you have there?” he said gravely.
“I think it is an Amanita,” said Lucy, trying hard to speak firmly, as she held out the whitish-looking fungus toward the old botanist, as if it had been a tiny Japanese parasol.
Major Day fixed his pince-nez on the organ it was made to pinch, and, taking the curious vegetable, carefully examined it, turning it over and over before saying decisively,—
“Yes, exactly; Amanita Vernus, a very poisonous species, Miss Alleyne. I—er—I am very glad to see that you keep up your knowledge of this interesting branch of botany. I have been paying a good deal of attention to it in Italy this past autumn and winter.”
“Indeed,” said Lucy.