But a rude awakening from her joyous dreams was at hand, and certain past events that seemed trivial in themselves were doomed to be recalled to her with a new and terrible significance!
They had one more than usually tender meeting and tender parting, because Sir Paget Puddicombe—the bête noir, the bugbear of both—was certainly coming to Maviswood, and Eveline was weeping bitterly.
'Take courage—take courage, my darling,' said Evan, as he kissed the tears from her eyes and strained her to his breast before he leaped on his horse; 'for my sake and your own have strength to resist, and all may yet be well—for my sake and your own, dearest Alice,' he added, with quivering lips, and was gone.
'Alice!'
Another's name uttered by his lips involuntarily while his heart seemed to be teeming with tenderness for herself—uttered in that moment of supreme sorrow, passion, and endearment—escaped him mechanically, as it were, yet too evidently by use and wont!
What did it mean—what could it mean, but one thing?
Her heart stood still for a moment and then beat wildly; she did not hear the noise of his horse's hoofs dying away in the distance, nor did she see his lessening figure, for the powers of hearing and of vision seemed to fail her.
She had received a cruel and terrible shock. Had she heard aright, or was it all a delusion of her ear, yet she repeated to herself with pallid face and quivering lips the word 'Alice!' while memory flashed back to the girl she had seen thrice—twice with Evan, and once evidently waiting for him at what seemed their trysting-place.
She remembered that the second time she had seen them they were walking silently together—full of their own thoughts apparently—and making no effort to entertain each other, and she had read that it is only 'the nearest and dearest' of kinships—the closest and sweetest of human intimacies that could explain such "wordless proximity." Strangers, acquaintances, when thrown together must politely talk; brother and sister, husband and wife, may be confidently, blessedly silent!'
She remembered now, with ready suspicion, that, when she and Evan first met suddenly afterwards, he scarcely evinced surprise. We have said that it was because his heart was full of her image, but this idea, this hope, did not occur to Eveline then—her mind was a chaos.