Silently as a shadow she crept up to the blossom-covered porch; some one was standing there, leaning against the very pillar around which she had twined her arms as she watched Rex’s shadow on the roses.
The shifting moonbeams pierced the white, fleecy clouds that enveloped them, and as he turned his face toward her she saw it was Rex. She could almost have reached out her hand and touched him from where she stood. She was sorely afraid her face or her voice might startle him if she spoke to him suddenly.
“I do not need to speak,” she thought. “I will go up to him and lay the letter in his hand.”
Then a great intense longing came over her to hear his voice and know that he was speaking to her. She had quite decided to pursue this course, when the rustle of a silken garment fell upon her ear. She knew the light tread of the slippered feet but too well––it was Pluma. She went up to him in her usual caressing fashion, laying her white hand on his arm.
“Do you know you have been standing here quite two hours, Rex, watching the shadows of the vine-leaves? I have longed 124 to come up and ask you what interest those dancing shadows had for you, but I could not make up my mind to disturb you. I often fancy you do not know how much time you spend in thought.”
Pluma was wondering if he was thinking of that foolish, romantic fancy that had come so near separating them––his boyish fancy for Daisy Brooks, their overseer’s niece. No, surely not. He must have forgotten her long ago.
“These reveries seem to have grown into a habit with me,” he said, dreamily; “almost a second nature, of late. If you were to come and talk to me at such times, you would break me of it.”
The idea pleased her. A bright flush rose to her face, and she made him some laughing reply, and he looked down upon her with a kindly smile.
Oh! the torture of it to the poor young wife standing watching them, with heart on fire in the deep shadow of the crimson-hearted passion-flowers that quivered on the intervening vines. The letter she held in her hand slipped from her fingers into the bushes all unheeded. She had but one thought––she must get away. The very air seemed to stifle her; her heart seemed numb––an icy band seemed pressing round it, and her poor forehead was burning hot. It did not matter much where she went, nobody loved her, nobody cared for her. As softly as she came, she glided down the path that led to the entrance-gate beyond. She passed through the moonlighted grounds, where the music and fragrance of the summer night was at its height. The night wind stirred the pink clover and the blue-bells beneath her feet. Her eyes were hot and dry; tears would have been a world of relief to her, but none came to her parched eyelids.
She paid little heed to the direction she took. One idea alone took possession of her––she must get away.