With which complacent reflections he arose and left the table.
As Madame Alroyd and Dora were passing up the stairs to their rooms, a servant met them and handed the latter a note.
She glanced at the handwriting, and in an instant flushed crimson, then turned pale as the pure lilies which hung from her hair, and lay against her soft cheek.
Passing swiftly to her room, with the note clasped in both her hands over her beating heart, she sank breathless upon a sofa, quivering in every nerve. The writing was Robert’s, and she felt that that white folded missive had power to seal her happiness or plunge her into the depths of woe.
Madame Alroyd took in at a glance the cause of her emotion, and so remained silent until her niece should recover herself sufficiently to read the note.
She had not long to wait, for soon Dora tore it eagerly open and read it through, her white face blanching to the hue of death, until at the last word she fell with a moan of anguish to the floor.
Her aunt sprang quickly to her side, and, seizing the fatal missive, flashed her eyes swiftly over it, for she felt she had a perfect right to know its contents.
“Dastard! cowardly villain!” burst fiercely from her firmly compressed lips at its close. Then ringing a furious peal for her maid, she gathered the unconscious girl tenderly in her arms, and moaned, “My poor stricken lamb, it is cruel, cruel to crush your young heart thus.”
The maid came in, and together they raised her and laid her gently upon a sofa, and applied restoratives.
Could Ralph Moulton have seen her then, methinks even his cruel heart would have failed him at the sight of that white, rigid face, and he would have been glad to give the lovers back to each other to have seen those lovely eyes again unclose, and that breathless bosom heave again.