“My sister is highly favored, Miss Gladstone; but I had flattered myself that I also should be missed.”
“Pardon me, if my words conveyed to you the idea that you would not,” Star said, quickly. “You have been most kind, Mr. Meredith, and I shall most certainly miss your companionship and your friendly attentions.”
Friendly attentions!
Mr. Meredith had received another stab.
“But,” she added, “will Grace go with you? You have not yet told me, and I have not heard her say anything about leaving.”
She hoped thus to ward off what she feared was coming, and turn the conversation in another channel.
“No; Grace will remain for another week. But, Miss Gladstone—Star,” he began, desperately, “I could not leave without seeking this private interview with you to learn my fate. You have called my attentions ‘friendly.’ Have you not realized that they have been vastly more than that? Have you not seen that I have grown to love you madly, idolatrously? You are modest as a violet, my bright Star; and although I have tried to win some sign of answering affection from you, yet you have not given me one. You have evaded my every look, my every word of love. But, my beautiful darling, it seems as if my true heart must find in yours a fond return. You will tell me to-night, will you not, dear, that you will give yourself to me? Star, how shall I tell you of the depth of my love?—how you have become so necessary to me, that if you should send me away without hope, the future would hold nothing to tempt me, nothing to make life worth the living. When I held you in my arms last Wednesday, and believed that your life had been endangered—when you lay unconscious upon my breast, close to my heart, so white and still, so exactly as if you were dead, I said to myself that I could not, I cared not to live, if you were taken from me. My love, look up into my eyes, lay your hand in mine, and tell me you will give yourself to me.”
He stopped in the path and waited for her answer—waited for her to lay her hand in his, as he had asked her to do, and bid him to hope and be the happiest man in the universe.
But her beautiful golden head was bent, as if weighted with some heavy care or sorrow. The star-like face was pale and downcast, and the lovely eyes, into which he longed to read an answering tale of love, were hidden by their white lids and curling lashes.
“Star,” he breathed, a note of keen pain in his tone, “do not tell me that I must give up my bright dream of joy.”