"She liked you, I thought," she answers, flushing under the steady fire of his eyes.
"Did she? I am sure I did not know it," he fibs, unblushingly. "I never thought of any other save you, Lady Vera. You were my only love. I have carried the rose you gave me ever since that night when we parted so coldly."
He comes nearer to her side, and taking the withered rose from his breast, holds it out before her gaze. She looks up and sees the old, warm love-light shining on her from the deep blue eyes. The sight makes her brave to speak.
"Yet if you had understood the message of the rose, we need not have parted at all," she falters, low and softly, with crimson blushes burning her lovely face.
"Vera, my love, my queen!"
He has bowed on one knee before her that he may look into the dark eyes so sweetly veiled beneath the drooping lashes. A rapture of happiness quivers in his voice.
"Lady Vera, tell me, do you mean that you repented after all? Did you find that my devotion had not been lavished in vain, and that you could give me love for love? Was that the message of the rose, my beautiful darling?"
No answer from the sweet, quivering lips, but that swift, quickly withdrawn glance from the dewy eyes tells Lady Vera's story plainer than words to her lover's heart.
The rose has carried its tender message at last, in spite of a hundred Miss Montgomerys, and if the sleepy chaperon should open her placid eyes now she would be shocked beyond recovery, for Colonel Lockhart, with all the boldness of a soldier, has drawn his darling into the shelter of his arms, and pressed the golden head close against the brave and loyal heart that beats for her alone.