"Hum! so it is. A singular coincidence of language. 'Some secluded part of Europe,'" he added, quoting George's words. "It would be difficult to find a more secluded spot than Rivoli."
It was now August, and the object for which our tour had been undertaken—the removal of Daphne's grief—seemed to be accomplished. We had visited France, Spain and Italy. In the early days of our tour nothing could move her from the dull lethargy which had been her normal state since that ill-starred Christmas morning; but gradually, as week after week glided by, she began to take an interest, faint and languid enough at first, in the historic places through which we were passing, till at length she seemed to have become her old bright self once more. The colour had returned to her cheek and the smile to her lip. Whether this happier condition arose from a determination to forget her trouble and adapt herself to changed circumstances, or whether it was due to the secret hope that George might yet return to her with his name cleared from the dark shadow resting on it, I could not decide; she never alluded to him, and on our part, my uncle and myself made it a point not to mention his name in her presence. She treated me with the same sweet familiar freedom as of old, so that I found it difficult to believe that for three years I had been exiled from her at Heidelberg.
During our tour I had never betrayed by word or by act the state of my feelings toward Daphne. Satisfied with the pleasure of daily companionship with her, I was quite content to bide my time patiently, and wait for some clear indication that George had passed—not from her memory, for that could never happen, but from her affections, before venturing to express for the second time the love I had never ceased to bear.
We had arrived at Rivoli only the preceding evening, and were staying at a châlet belonging to a Swiss gentleman who had let it to us for a month. He had left behind one member of his household to supplement our own servants—an agreeable, talkative old woman, who had received us with an effusive hospitality.
A light step now sounded on the terrace and Daphne's sweet voice greeted us.
"I shall not say good-morning, for you don't deserve it. Why didn't you call me earlier, papa, that I too might have seen the sun rise?"
Her father kissed her hands as though she were some princess.
"Because I knew you would be tired after the jolting of that horrible diligence yesterday," he said; "and so I let you rest. But you have no hat, and the mornings here are chilly."
I ran indoors, and returned with a heavy wrap which I drew round her head and neck.