"Did the play last night so captivate you, that you go back to the curls, because you cannot keep the braids?"
"A sillier whim than that, even. I am afraid of those two people; and as I am so quick to show my feelings in my face, I intend to hide behind this veil if I get shy or troubled. Did you think I could be so artful?"
"Your craft amazes me. But, dearest child, you need not be afraid of Faith and Adam. Both already love you for my sake, and soon will for your own. Both are so much older, that they can easily overlook any little short-coming, in consideration of your youth. Sylvia, I want to tell you something about Adam. I never spoke of it before, because, although no promise of silence was asked or given, I knew he considered it a confidence. Now that it is all over, I know that I may tell my wife, and she will help me comfort him."
"Tell on, Geoffrey, I hear you."
"Well, dear, when we went gypsying long ago, on the night you and Adam lost the boat, as I sat drying your boots, and privately adoring them in spite of the mud, I made a discovery. Adam loved, was on some sort of probation, and would be married in June. He was slow to speak of it, but I understood, and last night when I went to his room with him, I asked how he had fared. Sylvia, it would have made your heart ache to have seen his face, as he said in that brief way of his—'Geoffrey, the woman I loved is married, ask me nothing more.' I never shall; but I know, by the change I see in him, that the love was very dear, the wound very deep."
"Poor Adam! how can we help him?"
"Let him do as he likes. I will take him to his old haunts, and busy him with my affairs till he forgets his own. In the evenings we will have Prue, Mark, and Jessie over here, will surround him with social influences, and make the last hours of the day the cheerfullest; then he won't lie awake and think all night, as I suspect he has been doing of late. Sylvia, I should like to see that woman; though I could find it in my heart to hate her for her perfidy to such a man."
Sylvia's head was bent as if to inhale the sweetness of the flower she held, and all her husband saw was the bright hair blowing in the wind.
"I pity her for her loss as well as hate her. Now, let us talk of something else, or my tell-tale face will betray that we have been talking of him, when we meet Adam."
They did so, and when Warwick put up his curtain, the first sight he saw, was his friend walking with his young wife under the red-leaved maples, in the sunshine. The look Moor had spoken of, came into his eyes, darkening them with the shadow of despair. A moment it gloomed there, then passed, for Honor said reproachfully to Love— "They are happy, should not that content you?"