"I will tome," she promptly answered. Then, waiting to be kissed by both, she ran off, calling back sweetly:
"I'll not tell papa if oo don't want me to."
CHAPTER V.
MISUNDERSTANDINGS ARISE.
That night was a restless night for Adelina. There were mysteries she could not unravel. She could not reconcile Ralph's lapse of memory with the perfect self-poise subsequently evinced. She knew that a single instance of forgetfulness would not have been perceived by her with such readiness had it not been for antecedent knowledge of mental derangement. Memory had not proved treacherous regarding any other fact, however trivial, which had been mentioned in his hearing. There was another thing which troubled Adelina—Ralph's assumption that Harold and Mary were the benefactors, not of himself, but of the brother whom neither had seen. She had not wanted to talk the matter over again with her friends. It would only accentuate the sad feelings of each. She wanted time (of which commodity she soon had a sufficiency) to think it all over in the solitude of her own room. Once there, she found it equally as difficult to arrive at any just estimate of the truth. She dreamed that Ralph appeared with his brother, and commanded her sternly to choose between them.
She awoke with a shudder to find the sun shining brightly in her window, as if to beseech her to come out and enjoy his glories. She quickly responded to the manifest entreaty, only too thankful to discover that the long night—a night of troubled thought and dreams, was over. When at intervals of consciousness, she had tried to concentrate her vagrant thoughts to some purpose, she could only vaguely feel that there was something she was incapable of adverting; and so, when morning came at last, she was determined to accept such diversion as was offered.
Accordingly, arrayed in one of her most becoming gowns, she descended the stairs, and walked out on the veranda. It was characteristic of her, that when she was inwardly troubled she invariably took the greatest care in making her toilet, perhaps feeling that her spirits might ultimately assume the nature of her garb.
Adelina was soon joined by Ralph, who looked radiantly happy. He evidently thought that her propinquity was enough for the present, let the future bring what it might. He had so long been denied a sight of her, that it is to be doubted whether he even gave that future a thought. His buoyancy could not be otherwise than infectious; added to that were Adelina's strenuous efforts to shake off the unwelcome thoughts of the preceding night, to which she knew that she would succumb if left to herself—without the incentive of trying to appear cheerful before others. Those imbued with such altruism have some recompense even in this world, where reward so seldom seems to come for right doing—that of submerging their own woes in the happiness or reverses of others.
It was later in the morning that Adelina had further cause for sorrow. She had gone to her room for a volume of poems in order to find a quotation which Ralph had laughingly insisted she had misquoted. Adelina, in turn, asserted that he would regret that she had gone only to prove him wrong. Sad he certainly did look when she returned.