During his brief answer he surveyed her narrowly, the dread that had been gnawing his heart all the way home sharpening his vision in the search for signs of debility and disease.
She, too, wore a white dress, but a black grenadine shawl was folded over her chest, and Roy's eye rested aghast upon the thin hand that held it together. What had he been thinking of, not to discern the inroads of the destroyer in this, and in the finer oval of her face; in the slight cough that succeeded her question, and the hurried breathing he could hear in approaching her? If his awakening should have come too late!
"I believe I have the Spring fever," he said, affecting to suppress a yawn. "This weather puts one in mind of country delights; makes him crave the smell of the freshly upturned earth, and the sight of green land growing things."
"Then take a look at my conservatory," she returned, playfully, leading the way to the open bay-window.
The sill, without and within, was crowded with plants. She had been at work among them for an hour, and they were in their freshest trim. The pruning-scissors lay upon the shelf, and, taking them up, she clipped a sprig of heliotrope, another of mignonette, a rose-bud, and a bit of citron-aloes, bound them together with silk from her work-basket, and offered them smilingly.
"Thank you. They are very sweet, very beautiful! How does the jessamine thrive?"
"Not so well as it should—ungrateful little thing!" touching the leaves of a stunted vine which was honored with a china flower-pot and the sunniest stand in the window. "I am afraid it cannot flourish in this high latitude. It needs warmer earth, less fitful sunshine. Or it may be that I am killing it with kindness," she added, shaking her head pensively.
Roy detected another meaning in her thoughtfulness. Ungenial influences, unwelcome assiduity of attention, were sapping her vitality, and the analogy between her lot and that of her fading favorite was wearing upon her imagination.
"We will try again."
He had to clear his throat before he could speak. Jessie smiled slightly, with no misgiving of the communication that awaited her. She even stooped to pick off a few withered leaves that had previously escaped her notice. The two were side by side within the recess; so near together that the warm breeze blew the light folds of the wife's dress over the husband's arm; but she recked no more of the wretchedness kept down by his strong will than if a thousand leagues of ocean divided them.