“My mother had a maid called Barbara,” said Lilias, with her faint smile, “and, like Desdemona’s, she carried this old, plaintive music about with her. She did not die singing it; but I think, in her homely fashion, she knew its meaning well. I had it from her. But, Halbert, you are not well—something has troubled you!”
“No, Lilias.” He was looking very pitifully at the pale, calm face now raised to his.
“What is it then? There is no evil news from the North?”
“No, Lilias,” repeated Halbert, “nothing has happened to distress me; but—I wish you would tell me why you are so pale. Have you any friend ill? are you afraid of—”
Lilias had risen from her low seat in eager haste; her fingers were clasped together; the feverish hectic of anxiety was burning on her cheek.
“What is it?—tell me.”
“I do not know,” faltered Halbert, looking at her humbly, as if he had done wrong; “perhaps it is nothing—but I got a letter for you in Fendie, Lilias.”
She could not speak; her lips were dry and would not come together; but she held out her hand with a gesture of angry, commanding impatience, such as never mortal saw before in Lilias Maxwell.
And he placed the letter in the trembling outstretched hand—the ominous, mournful letter, with its border and seal of mourning. He saw her eye fall on the strange handwriting of the address; he heard the low groan with which the heart breaks; and then she turned away.
She turned away, groping in the noon sunshine like one blind; and Halbert stood in reverent pity, watching the tottering, rapid steps which went sheer forward to the door of the house, leaving footprints among the flowers, and breaking down the snowy, drooping head of one of the cherished lilies of Mossgray. Like it, Lilias was crushed to the ground. The honest heart of Halbert melted as he sat down on the steps of the sun-dial. Man as he was, he could have wept for her; the shadow of sympathetic grief came over him, and Halbert sat still and mused while the shadows lengthened on the dial at his head, thinking as he had never thought before.