It was late in the afternoon when she awoke again, and realized that she was much refreshed physically, although her burden of misery was still crushing down upon her heart.
Mrs. Blunt found her as white and wan as she had been flushed and feverish, when she looked in upon her again just before dinner, and she could not understand the look of hopeless despair that lay in her usually bright and joyous eyes.
“Whatever in the world is the matter with you, Miss Star?” she asked, anxiously. “It’ll be bad luck for me if you’re going to be sick, for since you came into the house, with your bright face and cheery ways, the days and months have grown shorter by half. Come, come, chicken, don’t look so downcast; it breaks my heart to see you so white and drooping.”
“I shall be all right by to-morrow, Mrs. Blunt. I am better already, thanks to your kind care,” Star returned, sitting up in bed and trying to bring her shattered nerves into better order. “If you will please hand me my school dress,” she added, “I think I will get up and take a run down to the lodge. I have not seen Uncle Jacob since yesterday morning, and he will wonder what has become of me.”
“Indeed, child, you mustn’t go out to-night, and as for Mr. Rosevelt, he knows all about you already. I sent word to him before noon that you wasn’t able to go to school, and he’s been up to the house twice since to inquire for you. He sets a store by you, Miss Star, and I believe it would break his heart if anything was to happen to you.”
A wan little smile flitted over Star’s face.
It was about the only ray of light or comfort that she had in her great darkness—this knowledge that there was one who did really love her, and to whom she also was almost a necessity.
She could rely on “Uncle Jacob,” if upon no one else, and she longed to go to him and lean upon him now in her trouble. Of course she could not tell him how she had let handsome, fascinating Archibald Sherbrooke win her heart from her, and then found all too late how cruelly she had been deceived. She was so thankful now that she had not allowed him to tell Mr. Rosevelt as he had wished, though, perhaps, that had only been another ruse of his, and he had not intended to tell him, after all; but it would be a comfort to go down to the lodge and see him, and listen to the kindly tones of his voice.
Mrs. Blunt helped her to dress, for she saw that she was glad to sit down by the window—though she shuddered as she remembered that she had sat just there last night when her heart had been broken—and rest, while she began to fear that she should not be able to get down stairs, after all, that night to go to see Mr. Rosevelt.
Mrs. Blunt watched her closely with those small, keen eyes of hers, and saw that her trouble was more of the mind than of the body, though what could have caused it was a puzzle to her.