"I did it to please you," he declared.
The sudden tide of joy and surprise made speech and thought almost impossible.
"I do not believe it all," Aurora said. "It is a dream I have been conjuring up." She withdrew from him. "Stay here, vision of a soldier. Do not stir. I am going to get my reason back." She turned, and walked slowly away the length of the room. "He is not here: it was a dream," she said, then turned again, uttered a sweet cry of joy, and, holding her arms out, met him half-way, and dropped against his breast again.
"I feel the motions of the earth as it flies around the sun and turns on itself," she said,—"two dizzinesses in one. As at first, so now, and so forever, without you I fall, D'Rubiera."
CHAPTER XXXV.
A FOUNTAIN.
That evening Mr. Churchill dined with his cousin and Mrs. Graham at their hotel, and afterward sat with his cousin in their balcony.
He found Edith wonderfully improved. She was either prettier, or her educated taste made her look so. She knew how to dress now, and her manner was better. She was cheerful, and she carried her head higher. The hair he once had thought red he knew now was the color the Venetian painters loved, and he looked admiringly at the rich coils that crowned her graceful head.
Besides, there was no sign of that too evident love which had driven him from her. She looked at him calmly, and spoke with a familiarity which had an undefined coolness in it.
While they sat there alone, talking pleasantly, a servant brought a note for Mr. Churchill. It had been taken to his house and forwarded to him. Excusing himself, he went into the room to read it by the shaded lamp.