But the gleam of hope that shot into his eyes admonished her, and she quickly shut the door and ran down stairs, without stopping to think, and was soon seated in a carriage and rattling rapidly away.
——
CHAPTER X.
How like an angel’s sigh of loving pity that summer’s wind breathed on the cheek of the sufferer! How kindly the crimson sunset clouds tried to shed their own glow on its pallor, and even to fill with light the tear that glittered on it. The blush roses, too, that swayed to and fro at the open window, vied with each other who should kiss the thin, white hand that rested on the sill; and her sad eyes beamed forth a grateful blessing on them all, as she lay there, like a child, in her father’s arms.
His face bore a strange contrast to the mournful gentleness of hers; for his dark, heavy brows were knit, and his lips compressed, as though in anger; yet that firm lip quivered, as he said, tenderly—
“How much you have suffered, my poor child! No wonder that it has made you sick and delirious!”
“I have suffered no more than I deserved,” murmured Clara.
“But how did the man try to extenuate his villany?” exclaimed her father, with a sudden flash of indignation from his dark eyes.
“Don’t speak harshly, dear father?” whispered she. “He confessed, at last, that he was married, but said he had long ceased to love; and then, he loved me—so madly!”
A smile of pure scorn curled Doctor Gregory’s lip, and he clasped his child closer in his arms, as he exclaimed—