"It is grievous to see dear Flo's sufferings," she wrote. "She is such a patient creature, and does all she is told; but at one time we hardly dared to hope that she would be spared to us. Poor papa was quite in despair; and as for Beatrix, she has been no use at all, she quite upset us the first evening by the way she clung to us. It is sad to see a girl of her age so entirely without control. The doctor still looks very grave over darling Flo, and I fear we shall be condemned to a winter in the south of France; in that case I shall send Beattie home to papa, for her crying and fretting only harass one. I dare say Langley will look after her a little for me.
"I little thought I was saying good-bye to you for such a long time. If you had known that, you would have been a little kinder, would you not? But I must not think of that. I am afraid I think of you all a great deal too much; the prospect of the long winter away from every one makes me dreadfully homesick. Write and tell me how dear papa looks, and how every one is, and all about yourself, and believe me always and ever your faithful friend,
"DORA."
Garth's answer was very cool and matter-of-fact. It contained a full description of Miss Palmer's wedding, with lengthy messages to Beatrix and Florence, and a few formal words of condolence over her prolonged absence. "It must be such a bore to be exiled against one's will," wrote Garth; but he did not say one word about himself.
Dora heaved a little sigh of regret as she folded up the letter. "Poor fellow! he is still very angry with me," she thought to herself.
Garth took a long, solitary walk when he had finished his epistle; it had taken him more than an hour to compose, and yet it had hardly filled one sheet of note-paper. He was heavy with discomfort, and yet a feeling of triumph was uppermost. "She will see that I am not to be played with; that I regard myself as free, and mean to keep my freedom," he said to himself, as he tramped through the country roads in the starlight.
It was the beginning of November, and there was a keen, frosty feeling in the air. The fields that bordered the road on either side looked black in the dim light; the trees looked gaunt and grotesque, stretching out their unclothed limbs in the darkness; the grey stone wails seemed dim and unsubstantial. Garth walked on with long, even strides. The cold air, the exercise, stirred his young blood, and drove away despondent fancies; in their place came pleasurable images, faint, yet full of grace, making pulsation stronger within him.
When did the thought first occur to him? When and where? or was it a thought at all, or only a feeling or sentiment? A novel sensation not to be described, and certainly not to be analyzed, had taken possession of him the very night after his interview with Dora, when, sore and angry, he had betaken himself to the cottage.
It was strange how that picture of the two sisters haunted him. Sometimes, when he woke up in the middle of the night, he recalled it vividly: the child curled up on the rocking-chair, the girl kneeling on the rug with the plate of cakes in her hand, the firelight shining on her round, dimpled arms and flushed face, and then her paleness, and the startled brightness of her eyes when she turned to him.
Had Dora ever grown pale at the sight of him? had she ever moved his better nature by such sweet, strong words as those that greeted his ear that night?