He is in a cottager’s garden, listening, amid the hum of the hives and the glory of old-fashioned wallflower borders, to the gossip of the simple old soul who is showing him her little domain. There is the quick trotting of a pony. A low phaeton drives past on the road beneath. And he has seen and shared the smiling glance of a gentle, lovely face--a sunny glimpse to be remembered. Again, he has been picnicking with friends, a family party, on the shore of a Highland loch, and has noticed with mingled admiration and resentment that while all others have been seeking their own enjoyment, one pair of frank and willing little hands has wrought the whole comfort of the group. They are in the shallops, rowing home, and as, pulling at his oar, he listens to the innocent freshness of a shy young voice singing some Highland boat-song, he becomes conscious for the first time of a vista before him of wondrous new and fair possibilities--of a path in life which is not to be trodden alone. Once more. It is a secluded spot. He has wandered in happy company, from his party. Clear as yesterday comes back the memory of the scene. In front some tented waggons, rust-brown with wandering years, trail down the woodland by-road. The gipsy woman has taken his silver coin, and, with a keen, shrewd glance, has wished the “lady and gentleman a happy bridal!” He has seized the moment, has whispered the secret which was no secret, and has read in shining eyes the answer of his hopes.
All that was a year ago, little more--woodland and lake and garden, with a hundred other scenes and episodes as tender, which, crowding back, fill his heart to bursting; and now----
He rises, closing the window, and passes into the adjoining room.
Treading softly on the thick carpet, a glance assures him that nothing has altered in the sick-chamber since he left it with the physician. Only amid the momentous stillness, in the subdued light by the fire, the trim, white-aproned nurse is trying to read. A whisper to her--she will be called if required; and, closing the door noiselessly behind her, she leaves him to watch alone.
Alone, for the last time, with all that is dear to him, the flower that is fading out of his life so soon! He turns to the bed. There, pale with preternatural loveliness, her dark hair spread like a cloud upon the pillow, lies the sunny sweetheart, the shy bride of a year ago. A faint moan, the glistening of a tear between the closed eyelids, betrays the grief that is haunting that strange shadowland between this world and the next--grief for that which was not to be! He can look no more! Sinking into a chair by the fire, he buries his face in his hands. It is the hour of his despair.