Throwing himself down carelessly upon a luxurious divan, he took up a volume of poetry lying near and tried to lose himself in its pages.
"Alas! how easily things go wrong, A sigh too much or a kiss too long-- And there follows a mist and a blushing rain, And life is never the same again."
He read the words out moodily, then threw the book down impatiently upon the floor.
"These foolish poets!" he said, half-angrily. "They seem always to be aiming at the sore spots in a fellow's heart. How they rake over the ashes of a dead love and strew them along one's path. Love! how strange the word sounds now, when I hate _her_ so bitterly!"
"Darling, how beautiful the sea is. Look how the sun sparkles on the emerald waves, like millions and millions of the brightest diamonds."
Poor little Lora, sitting in the easy-chair on the wide veranda of the little ornate cottage, a forlorn little figure in the deepest of sables, looked up in her sister's face an instant, then burst into a passion of bitter tears.
"The sea, the sea," she moaned despairingly. "Oh! why did you bring me here? I hate the sight and the sound of it! Oh! my poor Jack! my poor Jack!"
Mrs. St. John and Mrs. Carroll exchanged compassionate yet troubled glances, and the latter said gently, yet remonstratingly:
"My dear, my dear, indeed you must not give up to your feelings on every occasion like this. In your weak state of health it is positively dangerous to allow such excitement."
"I don't care, I don't care," wept Lora wildly, hiding her convulsed face against Xenie's compassionate breast. "My heart is broken! I have nothing left to live for, and I wish that I were dead!"
"Darling, let me lead you in. Perhaps if you will lie down and rest you will feel better in both body and mind," said Mrs. St. John, in the gentle, pitying accents used to a sick child.
Lora arose obediently, and leaning on Xenie's arm, was led into her little, airy, white-hung chamber. There her sister persuaded her to lie down upon a lounge while she hovered about her, rendering numberless gentle little attentions, and talking to her in soft, soothing tones.
"Xenie, you are so kind to me," said the invalid, looking at her sister, with a beam of gratitude shining in her large, tearful, dark eyes.