He could not catch Norine's faint reply. A second more, and again Miss Hester Kent was shrilly to be heard.
"Land of hope! whatever ails you. Norry? You are whiter than the dead. Oh, I know how it will be after to-night—you'll be laid up for a week."
He heard the house door close. Then he was alone with the rustling trees, and the bright, countless stars. As he stepped out into the crystal radiance, his face shone with exultant delight—alas! for Norine! not with happy love.
"I knew it!" he thought to himself in his triumph; "I knew I could take her from him at the very church door. Now, Richard Gilbert! whose turn is it at last—who holds the winning trump in the game? You have baffled, and foiled, and watched me many a time, notably in the case of Lucy West—when it came to old Darcy's ears through you, and he was within a hair's breadth of disinheriting me. Every dog has his day. Yours is over—mine has come. The wheel has revolved, and Laurence Thorndyke, gambler, trickster, libertine, as you paint him, is at the top. You have not spared me in the past, my good Gilbert, look to yourself now, for by all the gods I'll not spare you!"
While Mr. Thorndyke, with his hat pulled low over his brows, walked home to the obscure hotel at which he chose to stop, Norine was up in her room alone with her tumultuous heart. She had complained of a headache and gone at once. The plea was not altogether false—her brain was whirling, her heart throbbing in a wild tumult, half terror, half delight. He had come back to her, he loved her, she was going to be his wife! For over an hour she sat, hiding even in the dusk her happy face in her hands, with only this one thought pulsing through all her being—she was to be his wife!
By and by she grew calm and able to think. No thought of going to bed, or doing anything so commonplace as sleeping occurred to her. She wrapped herself in a shawl, seated herself by the window, and so for hours and hours sat motionless.
After all was love worth what she was about to give up for it—home, friends, a good man's trust, her soul's truth and honor? Was Laurence Thorndyke worth more to her than all the world beside, more than the peace of her own conscience. Richard Gilbert loved her, honored her, trusted her, she had taken his gifts, she had pledged herself to be his wife. This very day, dawning yonder over the hills of Maine, would see him here to claim her as his own forever. Was one sight of Laurence Thorndyke's face, one touch of his hand, one seductive tone of his voice sufficient to make her fling honor and truth to the winds, desert her best, her only friends, break her plighted husband's heart, and make her memory a shame and pain to them all forever? Oh, what a wretch she was, what cruel, selfish passion this love she felt must be!
The sun rose up between the fleecy clouds, filling the world with jubilant brightness, the sweet scents of sunrise in the country perfumed the warm air. Norine threw up her window and leaned out, worn and fevered with her night's vigil. That meeting under the trees seemed a long way off now, it was as if she had lived years in a few brief hours. Presently there was a rap at the door, and Aunt Hetty's voice outside spoke.
"Are you up, Norry? is your headache better, dear?"
"Much better, aunty—I'll be down directly."