The cottage home was being broken up; the dear old Major was in his grave; and Florian, the playmate of her infancy, the lover of her girlhood, was going away—she scarcely knew to where. They might be permitted to correspond by letter, but when, thought Dulcie—oh, when should they meet again?
The sun was shedding its light and warmth around her as usual, on woodland and hill, on wave and rock; but both seemed to fade out, the perfume to pass from the early spring flowers, the glory from land and sea, and a dim mist of passionate tears clouded the sweet and tender blue eyes of the affectionate girl.
He would return, he said, as he strove to console her; but how and when, and to what end? thought both so despairingly. Their future seemed such a vague, a blank one!
'I am penniless, Dulcie—a beggar on the face of the earth—twice beggared now, I think!' exclaimed Florian, in sorrowful bitterness.
'Don't speak thus,' said she imploringly, with piteous lips that were tremulous as his own, and her eyes drowned in tears.
They had left the road now, and wandered among the trees in a thicket, and seated themselves on a fallen trunk, a seat and place endeared to them and familiar enough in past time.
He gazed into her eyes of deep pansy-blue, as if his own were striving to take away a memory of her face—a memory that would last for eternity.
'And you really go to-night?' she asked, in piteous and broken accents.
'Yes—with Shafto. I am in a fever, darling, to seek out a position for myself. Surely Shafto may assist me in that—though I shrink from asking him.'
'Your own cousin?'