The months flew quickly by; the cold winter had slipped away, and the bright green grass and early violets were sprinkling the distant hill-slopes. The crimson-breasted robins were singing in the budding branches of the trees, and all Nature reminded one the glorious spring had come.
Rex Lyon stood upon the porch of Whitestone Hall gazing up at the white, fleecy clouds that scudded over the blue sky, lost in deep thought.
He was the same handsome, debonair Rex, but ah, how changed! The merry, laughing brown eyes looked silent and grave enough now, and the lips the drooping brown mustache covered rarely smiled. Even his voice seemed to have a deeper tone.
He had done the one thing that morning which his mother had asked him to do with her dying breath––he had asked Pluma Hurlhurst to be his wife.
The torture of the task seemed to grow upon him as the weeks rolled by, and in desperation he told himself he must settle the matter at once, or he would not have the strength to do it.
He never once thought what he should do with his life after he married her. He tried to summon up courage to tell her the story of his marriage, that his hopes, his heart, and his love all lay in the grave of his young wife. Poor Rex, he could not lay bare that sweet, sad secret; he could not have borne her questions, her wonder, her remarks, and have lived; his dead love was far too sacred for that; he could not take the treasured love-story from his heart and hold it up to public gaze. It would have been easier for him to tear the living, beating heart from his breast than to do this.
He had walked into the parlor that morning, where he knew he should find Pluma. She was standing before the fire. Although it was early spring the mornings were chilly, and a cheerful fire burned in the grate, throwing a bright, glowing radiance over the room and over the exquisite morning toilet of white cashmere, with its white lace frills, relieved here and there with coquettish dashes of scarlet blossoms, which Pluma wore, setting off her graceful figure to such queenly advantage.
Rex looked at her, at the imperious beauty any man might have been proud to win, secretly hoping she would refuse him.
“Good-morning, Rex,” she said, holding out her white hands to him. “I am glad you have come to talk to me. I was watching you walking up and down under the trees, and you looked so lonely I half made up my mind to join you.”