The day wore on to twilight; she had worked listlessly; in the twilight she laid her work aside, and went over to the cottage.
“I have something to show you,” said Miss Sarepta; “guess what my last good gift from Philip is.”
“I did not know that he had any thing left to give you.”
“It is the last and best. A flower of spring!” From a thick envelope in her work-basket, she drew out a photograph, and, with its face upward, laid it in Tessa’s hand.
A piquant face: daring in the eyes, sweetness on the lips.
“Nan Gerard!” cried Tessa, catching her breath with a sound like a sob.
“Naughty Nan! And they are to be married here in this room, that I may be bridesmaid.”
“Several of them, if I had had eyes to see!”
“It came last night, and I lay awake all night, thinking of the woman that Philip will love henceforth better than he loves me.”
“Oh, how can you bear it?” Tessa knelt on the carpet at her side, with her head on the arm of the chair.
“I could not, at first. I could not now, if I did not love Philip better than I love myself.”
So her sorrow had become Miss Sarepta’s! She drew a long breath, and did not speak.
“Don’t feel so sorry for me, dear. I have known that in the nature of things,—which is but another name for God’s will,—this must come. Even after all the years, it has come suddenly. Will she love my brother?”
“I am sure she will; more and more as the years go on!”
“Every heart must choose for itself,” said Miss Sarepta dreamily, “and the choice of the Lord runs through all our choices.”
A letter from Dinah that evening ended thus. “Father is not at all well; I think that he grows weaker every day. To-day he said, ‘Isn’t it _almost_ time for Tessa to come?’”
At noon the next day she was in Dunellen.
May came with blossoms, lilacs, and a birthday, she smiled all to herself over last year’s reverie; the anniversary of the day in which she had walked homewards with Mr. Hammerton and accepted Felix in the evening followed the birthday; a sad anniversary for Felix, she remembered, for he had her habit of retrospection.
The days slipped through his mind, Laura had told her; he would often ask the day of the week or month. He had become quiet and melancholy, seemingly absorbed in the interest of the moment. He had greeted Tessa as he would have greeted any friend, at their last interview, and she had left him believing that his future would not be without happiness. A year ago to-day, Mr. Hammerton had said that a year made a difference, sometimes. And this year! How the events had hurried into each other, jostling against each other like good-humored people in a crowd! A year ago to-day she had thought of Nan Gerard as the wife of Ralph Towne; to-day she was sailing on the sea, Professor Towne’s wife; just as naughty as ever, but rather more dignified. A year ago to-night she had held herself the promised wife of her old tormentor, Felix Harrison; since that night all his future had become a blank, the strong man had become as a little child; since that day Dine had found her wonderful John; since that day Dr. Lake had had his heart’s desire, and had been called away from Sue, leaving her a widow; the hurrying year had taken from Gus a long hope and had given him a future of hard work with meagre wages. And Dr. Towne! But she could not trust herself to think of him. They met as usual, not less often; he had grown graver since last year, and had thrown himself heart and soul into his work: never demonstrative, his manner towards her, had, if possible, become less and less intrusive; but ever responsive, having nothing to respond to, now, but a gentle deference, a shyness that increased; a stranger would have said, meeting him with Tessa Wadsworth, that he was intensely interested in her, but exceedingly in doubt of finding favor.