"This," said he; but his lip trembled, and he stopped for a second. Then he continued: "This is a message from her, Evelyn. And I know what poor old Calabressa would say of it, if he were here. He would say: 'This is what might have been expected from the daughter of Natalie Berezolyi!'"
"She knows, then?"
"Yes," said he, still looking at the hastily written lines in pencil, "and it is as you imagined. Her father has told her
we must not see each other again, and she has refused to be bound by any such injunction. I rather fancy she thinks he must have conveyed the same intimation to me; at all events, she has written at once to assure me that she will not break her promise to me. It was kindly meant; was it not? I wish Anneli had waited for a second."
He folded up the letter and put it in his pocket-book: it was one more treasure he should carry with him to America. But when, later on, Evelyn had left, he took it out again, and re-read again and again the irregular, hurried, pencilled lines, and thought of the proud, quick, generous spirit that had prompted them. And was she still awake and thinking? And could her heart hear, through the silence of the night, the message of love and gratitude that he sent her? "Good-night, and Heaven guard you!" It had been a troubled and harassing day for him; but this tender good-night message came in at the close of it like a strain of sweet music that he would carry with him into the land of dreams.
CHAPTER XXX.
SOME TREASURES.
The next morning Natalie was sitting alone in the little dining-room, dressed ready to go out. Perhaps she had been crying a little by herself; but at all events, when she heard the sound of some one being admitted at the front-door and coming into the passage, she rose, with a flush of pleasure and relief appearing on her pale and saddened face. It was Madame Potecki.
"Ah, it is so good of you to come early," said Natalie to her friend, with a kind of forced cheerfulness. "Shall we start at once? I have been thinking and thinking myself into a state of misery; and what is the use of that?"