“Soon, my daughter, you will have regained your strength and will. From your attitude of a little while ago I am made aware that you are possessed of such qualities as might impel you to attempt to betray your father. Be assured that you shall be given no opportunity for doing so. For your own good I would advise you to lay the honorable force of repression upon your disturbed spirits, and bring yourself to do that which I have set for you with completeness and swiftness. In this way you will render a service to your father and family, and save the life of this man you love.”
IX
PRIL danced lightly over the land. Merrily she flung her rainbow showers of sweetest water upon the earth, the trees, the fearsome grass which March had coaxed in vain to do more than peep its head above the soil. Now the land was covered with a mantle so soft and tender that its young life seemed a thing that it were wanton to crush beneath the foot.
Early, early in the morning, before the birds and flowers had cocked up their little heads to seize the first sun-kiss, a lover stood in a garden all made of gently sloping hillocks, crowned with trees whitened, as if frost-laden, with the full bloom of the cherry and plum. And the lover’s voice called softly and tenderly to his lady’s casement:
“Lady Wistaria! My sweetest Wistaria!”
At first there was no response. Moving nearer the casement, he called again:
“Sweetest, dearest one, will you not come to your window for a minute—but a fraction of a minute?”