“Cissy!” said, Marion.
Then Ralph looked at her. From where she sat Mrs. Archer could not see her cousin, but the tone of Marion’s voice stopped her in what more she was going to say, and she muttered some half apology, carelessly, and took up a book that lay beside her. So the sudden silence that followed was never explained to, and, indeed, hardly observed by Mrs. Archer.
Ralph looked up at Marion. For an instant her eyes met, but immediately she turned away. But he had seen enough. She rarely, as a rule, changed colour. The more tell-tale, therefore, appeared to him the flood of crimson which now overspread her face. Not face only. Neck, throat, all of the fair, white skin that was visible changed to deep, burning red. Not a merely passing girlish blush, but a hot over-whelming crimson glow, that, to Ralph, told of deep, heart emotion. He was right. But was it all for Frank Berwick?
“Oh,” thought poor Marion, “What a fool I am! Now, if even never before, he is sure to think it is true; to believe those mischievous reports.”
Ralph’s glance only rested on her for a moment. Then he looked away, looked out beyond the little terrace where was spread before him as lovely a view as mortal eyes could wish to behold. The bright smiling landscape in front, of trees and fields and gardens; here and there dotted with graceful villas or pretty cottages: and far away beyond, the still snow-clad mountains, serene and grand in their dazzling purity, their tops melting away in the few soft grey clouds which there alone, at the horizon, broke the deep even azure of the sky.
Two minutes before, Ralph had been admiring all this intensely. What had come over it now? The brightness seemed to have suddenly gone out of the sunlight, there was a dull grey look over all. What was it that had thus changed the world to him? Ah! what was it?
He knew it now. Knew for the first time fully and clearly, not merely that he loved this girl beside him, but far more than that, knew now in the depth of the agony which it cost him to realize that he must lose her, knew for the first time, how he loved her.
For a minute or two no one spoke. Ralph could not have uttered a word had he tried. A curious feeling, almost of suffocation, for a few moments oppressed him. But it gradually passed off. Then he rose, said something of it’s being later than he thought, shook hands with Marion, now busy again with her substantial rainbow, and left the little terrace.
As he passed through the drawing-room there lay Mrs. Archer on her comfortable sofa, fast asleep!
END OF VOL. I