For “pity is akin to love,” and Daisie did not have to pretend a sorrow she did not feel. Her grief was deep and fervent for the hopeful life cut off in its morning.
Once, when Lutie Fleming had come with her to the grave, she had said mournfully:
“Oh, if he had lived I must have learned to love him by and by—he must have won me by the strength of his own love. Now I will always live single for his sake.”
“No, Daisie, do not say that in your grief and remorse, for there was another who was so cruelly wronged in the past that you must soon begin to think of his claims. You know whom I mean, dear.”
Yes, Daisie knew. Soon after Royall’s death he had sent her one sympathetic line:
God bless you, my sweet little Daisie!
And so noble and gentle was his heart that he did not, for more than a year, intrude on the quiet mourning for the dead by recalling himself to her memory.
Yet Dallas knew that she would not forget.
When a year had passed, Mrs. Fleming showed how much her heart had changed by saying:
“You ought to lighten your mourning now, Daisie. Lord Werter has been very patient and forgiving, but he will be coming soon.”