Poor Flora! she had no words at command, no language in which to express the emotions the horrors of the night had occasioned, and she obeyed the doctor’s behest of silence simply because her tongue refused its office.
She listened to the exhortations addressed to her, and made a feeble motion to the effect that she would endeavour to comply with the wishes that had been expressed: and so she was left alone.
Where was she?
She cast her weeping eyes around; but, in the well-furnished room, recognised no object that could enlighten her upon that point. By the aid of the light of the candle, which had been left burning upon a table, she could distinguish everything in the room plainly enough, but there was nothing to tell her whose house she was within.
But she had a surmise. Women, quick at assumption, are rarely far wrong in their suppositions.
Flora, when she opened her eyes to find herself at a dizzy height above the uproar of the excited multitude assembled to witness the destruction of the dwelling by the remorseless fire, saw, too, that she was in the firm grasp of Harry Vivian. She remembered that now; and she was led to believe, therefore, that she had been conveyed by him to the house of his uncle, and that the kind and tender matron who had spoken to her such words of tenderness was his aunt.
Her lip quivered as the thought passed through her mind, and when—following the counsel of the doctor, no less than the dictates of her own pure mind—she offered up a prayer of thankfulness to the Throne of Grace for her escape, she invoked a blessing upon the head of him who had perilled so much to accomplish the work of her deliverance.
It has been said that it is seldom a woman disposes of her own heart—circumstances decide for her. One thing is certain—that she does not long remain in ignorance when her heart has been made captive. A man may for some time believe and assure himself that he only admires and esteems some very pretty girl: an accident will, however, disclose to him that he loves her. This is not the case with woman: a man upon whom she casts at first an indifferent eye may possess attractions which, gradually gaining her good will, ultimately win her affections; but her heart will no sooner be his than she becomes cognizant of the fact, and she takes her position accordingly.
Flora had been present many times when Hal Vivian had visited her father upon business. She had been irresistibly struck by his handsome face and well-formed figure, his pleasant expression of countenance, and his mild, courteous manner; but, if she had then thought of him at all, it was to consider him as an amiable young man—bearing the palm, perhaps, from every other she had as yet seen—nothing more.
Now, as she sought to close her eyes in sleep, she saw vividly his face, the bright red glow of the fire glaring upon it; she saw his glittering eye, his contracted brow, his inflated nostril, and compressed lip, the collective symbols of brave energy; she saw, too, that the contour was handsome and noble—with an almost painful distinctness she perceived that the daring effort of courage, which then so brilliantly animated his fine face, was solely made to save her from a dreadful death.