"You think that her love has turned to Loyd?"
"Can you doubt it?"
"What would be the consequences of her return to reason?"
"Mother dear," replied Hubert Effingham, manfully, "we had better not torment ourselves with considerations for the future; we have our hands full with the present."
Meanwhile Romaine and Morton had wandered out of ear-shot of this significant conversation, into the depths of the conservatory. They had paused beneath a luxuriant lapageria, and the girl had raised caressing hands, drawing downward a cluster of its frosty bells to her lips.
The startling likeness in tint between the wan face and the ghostly blossoms, as they gleamed side by side in the moonlight, so painfully suggested the sculptured pallor of death, that Morton caught her hands in his and drew her quickly into his embrace, as he would snatch her from the brink of the grave. She resigned herself to his clasp, almost rough in its passion, without a tremor, while she glanced with a wondering smile up into his face.
"I associate those cold, scentless flowers with a certain funeral," he said with a shudder that caused her to nestle involuntarily closer to him; "I saw them near you once, and God knows I would never see them so placed again!"
"Yes, I have worn them in my hair," she said, "and they were thought beautiful with my white lace gown."
"They were laid upon your breast when I saw them last," he muttered, "and they were cut from this very vine."
"Indeed? I do not recollect."