“CICELY MAUD METHVYN.”
“It will prepare him to some extent,” she said to herself. The note, simple as it was, had a certain formality about it, very different from the girlishly off-hand letters she had been accustomed to send him. “Will he feel it all relief?” she said to herself, as she thought how best and most clearly she must put into words the resolution she had come to. “Or will it be pain too? However he loves her, he did love me, and he cannot have changed so entirely as to give no thought to me.”
And again some tears blistered the smooth surface of the black-bordered envelope in her hand.
[CHAPTER V.]
“HOW LITTLE YOU UNDERSTAND.”
“What thing is Love which nought can countervail?
Nought save itself, ev’n such a thing is Love.
All worldly wealth in worth as far doth fail,
As lowest earth doth yield to Heaven above,
Divine is love and scorneth worldly pelf,
And can be bought with nothing but itself.”
WHEN Mr. Fawcett called the next day he found, as he expected, Cicely alone in the library waiting for him. She was pale, and her mourning gown made her appear very thin; but still it did not strike Trevor that she was looking ill. The black dress showed to advantage her pretty fair hair, and her blue eyes were clear and calm, as she came quietly forward to meet her cousin. He hastened eagerly up to her.
“Oh! Cicely,” he exclaimed reproachfully before she had time to speak, “you have made me so very unhappy.”
Cicely had not expected this; for an instant she felt taken by surprise.
“Made you unhappy,” she repeated, gently withdrawing from his clasp the hand he still held. “How?”