"Three weeks, then? I cannot be longer without seeing you."
"I will try to be ready for you then," she answered, with one of her rare, sweet smiles. Then, as she read the unspoken anxiety in his eyes, "Indeed, you must not be troubled about me; I will not fret more than I can help, and I have such sweet, happy thoughts about my darling; and then I cannot feel really lonely when I have you. Oh, Garth, if you only knew how different life looks to me now!" and for a little while she clung to him.
But though she sent him away half comforted she knew that she never needed him so sorely as during the miserable days of prostration and nervous depression that followed his departure; and but for very shame she would have recalled him.
For a little time she was utterly broken, and could only lie and weep, and pray that strength might be given her to bear her trouble. For ever through the lonely days and in the darkness of her sleepless nights Emmie's plaintive voice seemed sounding in her ears—"We have been so happy together, have we not, Queen?" The last clasp of the weak arms round her—she could feel their touch still; and the heavy drop of the head that Garth had lifted so tenderly from her bosom. Was she dead? She had not known it; even now she never thought of her as dead. During the brief snatches of slumber that came to her she was for ever carrying the light figure to and fro; there were the fair curls, the great, solemn blue eyes, the innocent smile playing round her mouth. "Am I very heavy? do I tire your arms, Queen? Oh, it is so nice to be together, just you and I!"
But Queenie bravely battled with her sorrow; and she was not without her consolation. Letters came to her from Church-Stile House—sweet, loving ones from Langley and Cathy, and others that she read with a happy smile, and hid under her pillow.
Garth's letters were very short and kind. They were not specially lover-like, there was no protestation of affection in them; but the whole breathed a spirit of quiet, watchful tenderness—the tenderness that a good man gives to the woman who has entrusted her future to him.
How Queenie loved these letters; they seemed to give fresh life to her.
"You have had good news, I can see," Dr. Bennet would say to her when he came in, and found her a little less languid, and with a faint color in her cheeks.
He was very watchful over the girl, and almost fatherly in his manner to her; he drove her himself to the cemetery when she craved for another sight of the little green mound. There was to be a marble cross at the head, and the little garden ground was to be planted with all the flowers that Emmie loved—her favorite roses, and in the spring time snowdrops and violets and lilies of the valley. Kind-hearted Mrs. Bennet promised to look after it when Queenie should be away in her northern home.
Garth's secret source of uneasiness when he had reached Hepshaw, and had received his sisters' delighted congratulations, was how he should break the news to Dora, and how she would receive it? He had made a clean breast of the whole thing to Queenie, as in duty bound, and then had bade her dismiss the matter from her mind. Dora and he were unsuited for each other; they were just old playmates and friends, that was all. He had no idea that Dora in her jealous desperation had appealed to Queenie, nor was Queenie ever likely to inform him.