Dulcie Carlyon was the belle of the limited circle in which she moved, and a very limited circle it was; but she was pretty enough to have been the belle of a much larger orbit; for she was the very ideal of a sweet, bright English girl, now nearly in her eighteenth year, and the boy and girl romance in the lives of her and Florian had lasted since they were children and playmates together, and they seemed now to regard each other with 'the love that is given once in a lifetime.'
'Could I but separate these two!' muttered Shafto, as with eyes full of envy and evil he watched one of their meetings, amid the bushes that fringed an old quarry not far from Revelstoke Church.
From the summit where he lurked there was a magnificent view of the sea and the surrounding country. On one hand lay the lonely old church and all the solitary hills that overlook its wave-beaten promontory; on the other were the white-crested waves of the British Channel, rolling in sunshine; but Shafto saw only the face and figure of Dulcie Carlyon, who was clad just as he was fond of picturing her, in a jacket of navy blue, fastened with gilt buttons, and a skirt with clinging folds of the same—a costume which invests an English girl with an air equally nautical and coquettish. Dulcie's dresses always fitted her exquisitely, and her small head, with smart hat and feather, set gracefully on her shapely shoulders, had just a soupçon of pride in its contour and bearing.
Slender in figure, with that lovely flower-like complexion which is so peculiarly English, Dulcie had regular and delicate features, with eyes deeply and beautifully blue, reddish-golden hair, a laughing mouth that some thought too large for perfect beauty, but it was fully redeemed by its vivid colour and faultless teeth.
'Could I but separate them!' muttered Shafto, through his clenched teeth, while their murmured words and mutual caresses maddened him.
Dulcie was laughingly kissing a likeness in an open locket which Florian had just given her—a likeness, no doubt, of himself—and she did so repeatedly, and ever and anon held it admiringly at arm's length. Then she closed it, and Florian clasped the flat silver necklet to which it was attached round her slender white throat; and with a bright fond smile she concealed it among the lace frilling of her collarette, and let the locket, for security, drop into the cleft of her bosom, little foreseeing the part it was yet to play in her life.
Shafto's face would not have been pleasant to look upon as he saw this episode, and his shifty grey eyes grew pea-green in hue as he watched it.
'Oh, Dulcie!' exclaimed Florian, with a kind of boyish rapture, as he placed a hand on each of her shoulders and gazed into her eyes, 'I am most terribly in love with you.'
'Why should there be any terror in it?' asked Dulcie, with a sweet silvery laugh.
'Well, I feel so full of joy in having your love, and being always with you, that—that a fear comes over me lest we should be some day parted.'