She had a pile of cushions spread with a scarlet shawl, and, like an Eastern beauty, lay languidly upon them. Her dress of palest blue was open at the throat, and her hands toyed listlessly with the heavy cord that confined her waist. There was a blush-rose tint on her usually pale cheek, and her hair, half escaped from its little net, lay like flecks of gold on the scarlet cover. I think I never saw repose, utter and perfect, before.
"Down through her limbs a drooping languor crept, Her head a little bent, and on her mouth A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon In a still water."
Suddenly the charmed silence was broken, for round the corner of the house came Mr. Radnor, with his arms filled with superb water-lilies, which he threw in a fragrant shower over his wife. He was saluted with exclamations of wonder and delight, and while he was replying, I had leisure to observe his wife.
The change was frightful: an ashen pallor had spread itself over her face, she was panting violently for breath, and, at the same time, attempting to clasp both hands before her eyes. I cried aloud and sprang towards her,--but it was too late.
At the same time, Anne Richmond threw herself upon her knees beside her, and, hastily gathering the snowy flowers from her dress and bosom, where they had fallen, thrust them into Mr. Radnor's arms, saying hurriedly, as she did so,--
"Pray, pray, take them away, sir, or your wife will die."
He obeyed blankly, and together Anne and I applied the usual restoratives, and, after some minutes, were rewarded by a faint color in her lips, then a quivering of the mouth, and I heard her murmur faintly,--"I saw him again, Anne. Oh, those dreadful flowers!"
Then her eyes opened,--those wonderful eyes, that were then almost startling in their blackness. She looked wildly round her for a single second, and, catching sight of me, was herself again,--haughty, self-sustained as before, even though lying helpless as a child on Anne Richmond's arms.
And, after all, pride is better for a fainting woman than all the sal volatile in the world, thought I, receiving her languidly uttered thanks, and retreating.
We saw no more of Mrs. Radnor that day. Her husband talked loudly of the extreme heat; and no one but the two who had observed the expression of her face when the perfume of the lilies first met her senses, knew anything to the contrary. As for me, I was restless and unquiet. There had been from the first a nameless something about Mrs. Radnor which had excited my deepest interest, and now my imagination was busy. One thing the painful scene of the morning had convinced me of, and that was, that some time in the past she had been quickened into life by the breath of love, and the flowers had played a terrible part in overwhelming her with memories possibly long buried in the deepest recesses of her heart; for--I acknowledged it--Mrs. Radnor had a heart. I never doubted it from the moment in which her face changed from its quiet repose into that torturing expression of fear that it wore when she fainted.