When she awoke she heard someone moving in the room. There was the rustling of a paper and the creak of a chair.
"Oh, Mrs. Trevor, have I told you everything?" she said, and she sprang to her feet, the color suffusing her cheeks and her eyes growing bright. "And are you going to send me out into the cold? Are you never going to speak to me again? Are you going to forsake me?"
"No, no; sit down," said a voice, and then Florence did indeed color painfully, for Mrs. Trevor was not in the room, but Maurice Trevor stood before the excited girl.
"My mother has told me the whole story," he said.
He looked perturbed, his voice shook with emotion, and his face was pale, and there was an angry scowl in his eyes. He took Florence's hand and pushed her into a chair.
"Sit down," he said. She looked up at him drearily.
"All the roses are dead," she said softly; "the time of roses is over."
"No, it is not over; it will come back again at the proper season," said Trevor; "and don't think that I—"
"But do you know—"
"I know," he answered gravely. He bowed his head; then he drew a chair forward.