But no, it was none of these which had laid their signet there. Alas for her enlightened eyes! she felt it was not sorrow—not sickness—but sin; that no cloud had settled on his brow which she could have dared the fond attempt to pierce; and agony to think that it should have come to this; that she should be seated at his side, and feel it were not possible that she could lay her weary head upon that lover's arm, place her hand in his, with the love and confidence with which she had even yearned towards another.
But this had been the vague and passing reflection of a second. With scarcely perceptible pause she had softly replied:
"I have done little, Eugene, which would count for much in your varied and busy existence. The most important feature in my own consideration has been an excursion to Italy, which I took last summer with my brother."
Mary's voice trembled nervously as she uttered these last words, for she felt that now had come an opportunity she must not neglect, for leading on to the critical subject on which she had to speak: and, as if to support her desperate purpose, unclasped the little trinket-case she had all this time still held concealed in the palm of her delicate hand.
"To Italy! oh, indeed;" was Eugene's reply. "I was very nearly going there at the same time; it was just a chance that I did not. My father's illness, a constant tie upon my movements, prevented me at the last moment; how delightful it would have been if we had met."
Mary made no reply, but looked down still with that peculiar expression which could not but strike Eugene as ominous of something of an important and peculiar nature.
"And you were charmed, I suppose;" he proceeded, perusing her countenance with increasing interest and attention; "so much so that I fear you would scarcely have considered my society as an addition to your enjoyment; you have learnt to live too well without me, I am afraid, Mary."
That low and flattering tone of other days thrilled Mary's heart, and flushed her cheek with emotions as of old; but gently removing the hand which for an instant she passively yielded to his pressure, she did not raise her eyes as once she would have done, in tender rebuke at the unjust assumption—she did not say how wearisome and dark had life become without him—how void, wasted and incomplete!—but hurriedly, as if she feared the working of the olden spell, and the consequent melting away of her sterner resolution, she started forward upon the anxious theme weighing on her heart.
"I met with a strange adventure at Tivoli, Eugene; it was about that I wished most particularly to speak to you. One morning, as I was walking out early, I found this ring upon the ground;" and as she spoke she produced the signet from the case, and held it towards him. "You may imagine how surprised I was to see your initials, and your crest; I scarcely knew indeed what to think, till walking on a little further I overtook—Mr. Temple!"
Her listener, who had at first taken the ring wonderingly from her hand; as she proceeded, raised it to the light, and then abruptly, as if for the purpose of closer examination, he started up and approached the candle.