“What do you mean to do?”
“Mean to do!” she answered, swinging round and facing her; “I mean to have my revenge.”
“O Florence, it is wicked to talk so! whom are you going to be revenged on—Ernest? It is not his fault if —if you are fond of him.”
“Yes, it is his fault; but whether it is his fault or not, he shall suffer. Remember what I say, for it will come true; he shall suffer. Why should I bear it all alone? But he shall not suffer so much as she. I told her that I was fond of him, and she promised to leave him alone—do you hear that?—and yet she is taking him away from me to gratify her vanity—she, who can have anybody she likes.”
“Hush, Florence! Don’t give way to your temper so, or you will be overheard. Besides, I daresay that we are making a great deal out of nothing; after all, she only gave him a rose.”
“I don’t care if we are overheard, and it is not nothing. I guessed that it would be so, I knew that it would be so, and I know what is coming now. Mark my words, within a month Ernest and my sweet sister will be sitting about on the cliff with their arms around each other’s necks. I have only to shut my eyes, and I can see it. O, here is Jeremy! Is the carriage there, Jeremy? That’s right. Come on, Dorothy, let us go and say good-night and be off. You will drop me at the cottage, won’t you?”
Half an hour later the fly that had brought Miss Ceswick and Eva came round, and with it Ernest’s dog-cart. But as Miss Ceswick was rather anxious about the injured wheel, Ernest, as in duty bound, offered to see them safe home, and, ordering the cart to follow, got into the fly without waiting for an answer.
Of course Miss Ceswick went to sleep, but it is not probable that either Ernest or Eva followed her example. Perhaps they were too tired to talk; perhaps they were beginning to find out what a delightful companionship is to be found in silence; perhaps his gentle pressure of the little white-gloved hand, that lay unresisting in his own, was more eloquent than any speech.
Don’t be shocked, my reader; you or I would have done the same, and thought ourselves very lucky fellows!
At any rate, that drive was over all too soon.