"Alas! in this wild passion I have forgotten every thing—my duty to you—the very heaven where my mother is an angel!" cried Florence, and for the first time in many days she began to weep.
Mr. Hurst took her hands in his, tears stood in his proud eyes, and his firm lips trembled with tender emotions. "My child," he said, pointing to a velvet easy-chair that stood in the chamber, "kneel down by your mother's empty chair and pray even as when you were a little child!"
Florence watched her father as he went out through her blinding tears. The door closed after him, a mist swam through the room, she moved toward the empty chair, and through the dim cloud which her tears created its crimson cushions glowed brightly, as if tinged with gold. A gleam of sunshine had struck them through a half open shutter, but it seemed to her that the sudden light came directly from the throne of Heaven.
The next moment Florence fell upon her knees before the chair, her face was buried in the cushions, broken words and swelling sobs filled the room; over her fell that golden sunbeam, like a flaming arrow sent from the Throne of Mercy to pierce her heart and warm it at the same moment.
The sun went down. Slowly and quietly that wandering beam mingled with the thousand rays that streamed from the west, spreading around the young suppliant like a luminous veil; there was blended with the gold hues of rich crimson and purple, that flashed over the ebony mirror, wove themselves in a gorgeous haze among the snow-white curtains of the bed, and fell in drops of dusky yellow over the floor and among the waving apple-boughs.
But Florence felt nothing of this, her heart was dark, her frame shook with sobs, and the agony of her voice was smothered in the cushions where her face lay buried.
It came at last, that still small voice that follows the whirlwind and the storm. In the hush of night it came as snow-flakes fall from the heavens. And now Florence lay upon the cushions of her mother's chair motionless, and calm peace was in her heart, and a smile of ineffable sweetness lay upon her lips. It might have been minutes, it might have been hours for any thing that the young suppliant knew of the lapse of time since she had crept to her mother's chair. When she arose the moonlight was streaming over her through an open window. Never did those pale beams fall upon features so changed. A spirituelle loveliness beamed over them, soft and holy as the moonlight that revealed it.
Some time after midnight Mr. Hurst went into his daughter's chamber, for anxiety had kept him up, and the entire stillness terrified him. She was lying upon the bed, half veiled by the muslin curtains, breathing tranquilly as an infant in its mother's bosom. During many nights she had not slept, but sweet was her slumber now; the flowers inhaling the dew beneath the window did not seem more delicate and placid.
It was daylight when Florence awoke. A few rosy streaks were in the sky, and lay reflected upon the water like threads of crimson broken by the tide. Out to sea, a little beyond the opening of the cove, was a large vessel with her sails furled, and evidently lying-to. Near a curve of the shore she saw a boat with half a dozen men lolling sleepily in the bow. Her heart beat quick with a presentiment of some approaching event. She felt certain that the boat and the distant ship were in some way connected with herself. But the thought hardly had time to flash through her brain when a commotion in the old apple-tree—a shaking of the limbs and tumultuous rustling of the leaves—made her start and turn that way. The largest bough was that instant spurned aside, and Jameson sprung through the open window. He was out of breath and seemed greatly excited.
"Florence, my wife, come with me!" he said, casting his arms around her shrinking form. "I will not go without you. See the vessel is yonder—a boat is on the shore. In half an hour we can be away from your father, alone, without hindrance to our love. Come, Florence, come with your husband!"