Lady Edith looked very eager, but her brother was compelled to own that he was too weary from the tempestuous ocean voyage they had had to start for the South yet. He had been severely ill some months ago, and had never quite recovered his strength since. He thought it was best for him to remain in New York to rest a few days.
“If Edith’s impatience to see Mrs. de Vere will brook the delay,” he said, with an affectionate glance at the young widow.
“I will wait for you, of course, dear brother,” she said with sweet patience; and after Norman had reiterated many times the pleasure with which they would be received at Verelands, he was compelled to say good-bye and leave them.
“Be sure to keep our coming a profound secret from your sweet Thea. I want to surprise the darling,” Lady Edith cried, gayly; and Norman promised not to tell.
After he had gone, Lord Stuart and his sister talked of him some time. Lady Edith thought him one of the grandest men she had ever met, and her brother agreed with her fully. They talked over the story of his early life which Lord Stuart had confided to her in the most of its details, and both rejoiced that success and happiness had come to him at last.
“No one has deserved it more,” said Lord Stuart, doing justice at last to the man whom he had once despised and underrated, and sincerely glad that Norman had found so lovely and loving a bride to make up to him for the sorrows the capricious and guilty Camille had brought upon his life.
Lady Edith felt that three days would be long to linger in New York, when she was so eager to meet again the winning girl who had stolen into her inmost heart, and whose little child bore the name of the dead husband she had loved so dearly; but she did not utter her impatience aloud.
She had a sweet and docile nature that clung most tenderly to her elder brother in his weakness, and not for worlds would she have hinted to him that she was impatient at their enforced delay on account of his weariness.
It seemed strange to her at times that her heart dwelt so devotedly on the lovely girl-wife, but when she questioned herself for the reason, she said to herself that it was partly because of the girl’s wonderful grace and charm, and half because of the strange chance likeness to the baronet, her dead husband. He had been a blonde, with hair almost as golden as Thea de Vere’s, and eyes of deepest violet. His early death and the long, long illness of Lady Edith that followed it had left ineffaceable traces on heart and brain. Her tender eyes had grown used to tears, and her heart to the echo of the poet’s plaint:
“So tired, so tired, my heart and I!