But there was no answering sound, save the sad sighing of the rustling leaves which had so unnerved the unhappy girl a few minutes before.
He followed the direction she had taken. He wandered about the grounds for full half an hour, but could discover no trace of her; and at last, feeling greatly disturbed, he was obliged to retrace his steps, and returned to the mansion.
He had strolled forth at the close of dinner to smoke, and to get away for a little quiet musing, for he had intended, as he said, to seek out his beautiful love on the morrow, and put upon one of her white fingers the seal to their plighted troth, and, this done, to tell her that he was both an artist and a peer of Victoria’s realm.
During his stroll, and while thinking fondly of the bright girl, he had unconsciously strayed into the very avenue where Star had stopped to rest.
Wrapped in her heavy shawl, and with head bowed upon her hands, he had not recognized her, but thought it might be one of the servants, perhaps, who had got into some trouble.
Always ready to relieve suffering of whatever nature, he stepped up to the sobbing girl and gently laid his hand upon her shoulder to attract her attention, and when the tear-stained, suffering face of his own love was lifted to his, his astonishment rendered him speechless for the moment.
But it was a fact, nevertheless, that he had appeared in different places in different characters—he was at once Archibald Sherbrooke and Lord Carrol, of Carrolton; how, we must let his own words explain.
“Poor child! it is very awkward, and I never dreamed of any such denouement; but I cannot blame her. If she would but have given me one moment in which to tell her how it is; but she was wild with pain,” he said, with a troubled face, as he slowly went back to the house.
It is doubtless now made plain to the reader how he had happened to recognize the cameo ring upon Josephine’s hand at Long Branch, and knew at once that it was the very stone which he had given Star at parting on shipboard.
He did not like to question Miss Richards about it, but he was deeply hurt when she told him that it had been given her by a relative, for he felt sure that he could not be mistaken in the stone—there could not be another like it, for he had designed the figure upon it himself.