NO HOPE.
Once more the scene changes to Dallory.
Seated on a lawn-bench at Dallory Hall in the sweet spring sunshine--for the time has again gone on--was Ellen Adair. Sir William Adair and Arthur Bohun were pacing amidst the flower-beds that used to be Mr. North's. Arthur stooped and plucked a magnificent pink hyacinth.
"It is not treason, sir?" he asked, smiling.
"What is not treason?" returned the elder man.
"To pick this."
"Pick as many as you like," said Sir William.
"Mr. North never liked us to pluck his flowers. Now and then madam would make a ruthless swoop upon them for her entertainments. It grieved his heart."
"No wonder," said Sir William.
The restoration to the old happiness, the disappearance of the dreadful cloud that had told so fatally upon her, seemed to infuse new vigour into Ellen's shortening span of life. With the exception of her father, every one thought she was recovering: the doctors admitted, rather dubiously, that it "might be so." She passed wonderfully well through the winter, went out and about almost as of old; and when more genial weather set in, it was suggested by friends that she should be taken to a warmer climate. Ellen opposed it; she knew it would not avail, perhaps only hasten the end; and after a private interview Sir William had with the doctors, even he did not second it. Her great wish was to go back to Dallory: and arrangements for their removal were made.