It was he. It was Mr. Loftus. He was looking for her. He was coming to her. Joy and terror seized her.
He saw her standing motionless in her white gown under the white blossom-laden tree. And as he drew near and took her nerveless hands in silence, and looked into her face, he saw again in her deep eyes the shy, imploring glance which had met him once before—the mute entreaty of love to be suffered to live.
'Sibyl,' he said, and in his voice there was reverence as well as tenderness—reverence for her untarnished youth, and tenderness for the white flower of love which it had put forth, 'will you be my wife?'
[CHAPTER IV.]
'J'ai vu sous le soleil tomber bien d'autres choses
Que les feuilles des bois et l'écume des eaux,
Bien d'autres s'en aller que le parfum des roses
Et le chant des oiseaux.'
Alfred de Musset.
'Mummy,' said Peggy, a few days later, coming into her mother's sitting-room and pressing her round, cool cheek against Lady Pierpoint's, 'why does Sibyl want to marry Mr. Loftus?'
'Because she thinks she loves him, Peggy, as many other women have done before her.'
'I think I love him, too, in a way,' said Peggy. 'He is better than anybody. When I am with him, I feel—I don't know what I feel, only I know it's good, and I want to do something for him, or make him something really pretty for his handkerchiefs; but—I don't want to marry him.'