Harry Vivian, overflowing with Mr. Harper’s instructions and his own emotions of delight, one morning by arrangement entered the room in which Flora was seated alone, and advanced towards her shyly and slowly.
Flora, who, as the door opened, turned her gaze upon it as though she
Knew whose gentle hand was on the latch,
Ere the door had given him to her eyes,
as he made his way into the apartment, rose up. The colour fled from her cheek, and she was seized with such a sudden and violent palpitation of the heart that she was forced back into her chair again. She trembled all over. Then her cheek flushed, and she felt once more impelled to rise and hurry towards him to grasp his hand, and pour forth a torrent of eloquent gratefulness. The emotion which she experienced was new and strange to her; her every nerve thrilled rather with a sense of pleasure rather than with any other feeling.
She was confused, dizzy. But withal, an overpowering gladness reigned within her soul that he and she were once more face to face.
Ay, they were palm to palm, too. At first without a word. What could they say? their hearts were too full for utterance; both remembered how together they had trembled on the verge of eternity, and there was a deep solemnity in the thought, which, for the moment, forbade speech.
Flora was the first—wonderful gift pertaining to woman—to recover her self-possession. In words, low toned, but earnest and heartfelt, she expressed her sense of the obligation she owed him, and though he, recovering, too, his speech, would have stayed her, she was not to be so checked, but gave utterance to all her full heart dictated.
“For my own life I am your debtor. I am sensible what I owe to you on that account,” she observed, with much feeling, “and I can never, never discharge the obligation; nay, perhaps I would not if I could, for indeed, Mr. Vivian, after the brave and noble conduct you have displayed, it affords me a gratification I have no words to describe, to know that I shall henceforward be attached to you by ties of gratitude which no adverse circumstances can ever sunder.”
Why did she suddenly turn so crimson, and look affrighted at the words which she herself had uttered? Was it that Hal’s eye danced with joy, or that he raised her hand to his lips, and pressed it with them?
Well, it matters not; her eye fell upon the ground, and her hand remained within his; she did not offer to withdraw it, though he had kissed it softly and tenderly it is true, but not without a little empressement—if ever so little.
He had not seen her frightened look, but her words had made his heart leap, and but that he had the proposition of his uncle to make, it is not impossible that he would have responded to them by confessing that her attachment, however ardent, was fully reciprocated by him. As it was, he restrained himself.