CHAPTER XXXIX.

A WILD-FLOWER OFFERING.

When Webb entered his master's room, after the young wife had fled from it, he found the patient in a high state of excitement. The flash of his eye, and the vivid color in his cheeks, fairly frightened the good man, who dreaded, above all things, a second attack of the fever, which had already so nearly proved fatal.

"Help me to the couch; wheel it to the window. I want to look out; I want air!" said the young man, flinging himself half off the bed, and reeling toward the couch, on which he dropped, panting and so helpless that he could only enforce his first order by a gesture. Webb folded the dressing-gown over his master, and wheeled the couch close to the window.

"Open it! Open it!" gasped the young man, impatiently.

Webb threw open a leaf of the French window. Struggling to his elbow, young Hurst leaned out, scanning the flower-garden with bright and eager eyes. But the arm on which he leaned trembled with weakness, and soon gave way. His head fell upon the cushions, and his eyes closed wearily.

"I cannot see her," he murmured, under his breath. "I cannot see her. She could not have escaped if it had been real. Ah, me! Why should dreams mock one so?"

"Let me close the window," said Webb, anxiously. "The air is too much for you."

"Yes, close it," answered Hurst, with a sigh; "but first look out, and tell me if you see any one moving among the flowers."

Webb stepped into the balcony and examined the grounds beneath it. As he did this, a gust of wind swept through the opposite door and carried with it a folded paper, which had fallen from the invalid's hand when he staggered up from the bed.

"No," said Webb, closing the window. "I see no one but a young woman going round to the servant's entrance."

"A young woman! Who is it? Who is it?"

"No one that I have seen before. Nay, now that I look again, it is the young woman from the public over in the village."

"What is she doing here?" questioned Hurst, impatiently.

"Come on some errand from her mistress to the housekeeper, most likely," answered Webb.

"At first I almost thought it was old Jessup's daughter; but for the lift of her head, and the swing in her walk, one might take her for that."

"Old Jessup's daughter! Don't talk like a fool, Webb," said the young man, rising to his elbow again, flushed and angry. "As if there could be a comparison."

Webb very sensibly made no reply to this; but thinking that his master might be vexed because Lady Rose had not brought her usual offering of flowers that morning, changed the subject with crafty adroitness.

"Lady Rose has gone out to drive in the pony carriage. Sir Hugh would have it so," he explained.

"Yes, I dare say," muttered Hurst, indifferently. "She stays about the house too much. It is very tiresome for her."

The young man never closed his eyes after this, and, with both hands under his head, lay thinking.

"It was so real. I felt her kiss on my lips when I awoke. Her hand was in mine. She looked frightened. She left something. Webb! Webb!"

"Yes, Mr. Walton!"

"Look on the bed. I have lost something--a paper. Find it for me. Find it."

Webb went to the bed, flung back the delicate coverlet, and the down quilt of crimson silk: but found nothing either there or among the pillows.

"There is nothing here, sir!"

"Look again. There must be a paper. I felt it in my hand. There must be a paper."

"Really, Mr. Walton, there is nothing of the kind."

"Look on the floor--everywhere. I tell you it was too real. Somewhere you will find it."

Webb searched the bed again, and examined the carpet, with a feeling of uneasiness.

"The fever has come back," he thought. "He is getting wild, again. What can have done it? He seemed so quiet when I went out--was sleeping like a baby."

Troubled with these thoughts, the faithful fellow went on, searching the room, without the least shadow of expectation that he would find anything. At last he rose from his knees, and repeated, "There is nothing here, sir."

Hurst uttered a deep sigh, and turned his head away, weak and despondent.

"Dreams, dreams," he thought. "She is always coming, but never comes--never. Ah, this is too cruel. Can it be so clear, and yet a dream?"

Webb came up to the couch, hesitating and anxious. The flush was still on his master's face. His eyelids were closed, but they were quivering, and the long, dark lashes were damp with tears the young man was unable to suppress in the extremity of his weakness.

"Something has happened. Who has dared to disturb you?" said Webb, touched and anxious.

"Dreams, Webb, dreams--nothing else. Help me back to bed."

Webb obeyed this request with great tenderness, and, in a few moments, Hurst lay upon the pillows he had left with such a burst of wild hope, completely prostrated.

"Don't let me sleep again," he murmured, wearily. "Not in the day-time. Such rest is a cheat."

"Ah, you will not care to sleep now," said the servant, "for here comes Lady Rose, with her carriage full of ferns and flowers, from the woods. She said, this morning, that the splendor of our roses only wearied you, and she would find something so fresh and sweet that no one could help admiring them. Ah, Mr. Walton, the young lady never tires of thinking what will please you best."

"I know--I know," answered Hurst, impatiently. "She is good to every one."

Just then a sweet, cheerful voice was heard in the hall. Directly the door opened softly, and Lady Rose came in, carrying an armful of ferns and delicate wild flowers close to her bosom.

"See, what I have brought you," she said, looking down upon her fragrant burden with child-like delight. "I saw how tired you were of those great standard roses, and the ragged snow of our Japan lilies. Arrange them as I would, they never made your eyes brighten. But these are so lovely; great, blue violets, such as only grow around the old summer-house on the black lake. And such ferns! You never saw anything so dewy and delicate. Sir Noel and I brought them away in quantities; one goes to the lake so seldom, you know. Really, Walton, I think such things thrive best in the shadows. See!"

Lady Rose had seated herself on the couch which the sick man had just left, and while her soft, blonde hair was relieved by the purple velvet of the cushions, dropped the flowers into her lap. Then she began to arrange them into bouquets, and crowd them into vases which Sir Noel brought to her, with an attention that was both gallant and paternal.

As she was filling the vases, Lady Rose selected the brightest blossoms and the most delicate tufts of fern from the mass, and laid them upon the purple of the cushion, with a little triumphant glance at Sir Noel, which brought to his lips one of those rare smiles that came seldom to them in these days.

When all was done, the girl gathered these choice bits into a cluster, tied them with a twist of grass; and, gathering up the refuse stalks and flowers in her over-skirt, stole softly to the bed, and laid her pretty offering on Hurst's pillow.

The young man turned his head, as if the perfume oppressed him, and a slight frown contorted his forehead. Lady Rose observed this, and a flood of scarlet swept up to her face. Sir Noel observed it, also, and frowned more darkly than his son.

Without a word, though her blue eyes filled with shadows, and her white throat was convulsed with suppressed sobs, Lady Rose left the room. Once in her own apartment, she tore back the lace curtains from the open window, dashed all the remnants of her flowers through, and flinging herself, face downward, on a couch, shook all its azure cushions with a passionate storm of weeping.

"He does not love me! He never will! All my poor little efforts to please him are thrown away. Ah, why must I love him so? Spite of it all, why must I love him so?"

Poor girl! Fair young creature! The first agony of her woman's life was upon her, an agony of love, that she would not have torn from her soul for the universe, though every throb of it was a pain.

"Why is it? Am I so disagreeable? Am I plain, awkward, incapable of pleasing, that he turns even from the poor flowers I bring?"

Wondering where her want of attractions lay, humble in self-estimation, yet feverishly wounded in her pride, the girl started up, pushed back the rich blonde hair from a face fresh as a blush rose with dew upon it, for it was wet with tears, and looked into the opposite mirror, where she made as lovely a picture as Sir Joshua ever painted. The tumultuous, loving, passionate picture of a young woman, angry with herself for being so beautiful and so fond, without the power to win one heart which was all the world to her.

"I suppose he thinks me a child," she said; and her lips began to tremble, as if she were indeed incapable of feeling only as children feel. "Oh, if I were--if I only could go back to that! How happy we were then. How gladly he met me, when he came home from college! I was his darling Rose of roses then--his little wife. But now; but now--Is that girl prettier than I am? Does he love her? I don't believe it. I will not believe it. She may love him. How could any woman help it? Poor girl! poor girl, I pity her! But then, who knows, she may be pitying me all the time! She almost seemed to claim him that awful night. Oh, I wish that look of her eyes would go out of my mind. But it seems burned in."

Lady Rose had ceased to weep, though her superb blue eyes were still misty, and full of trouble, as these thoughts swayed through her brain. Something in the mutinous beauty of that face in the glass half fascinated her. She smoothed back the cloud of fluffy hair from her temples, and unconsciously half smiled on herself. Surely, the dark, gipsy-like face of the gardener's daughter could not compare with that. Then Walton Hurst was so proud; the only son of a family rooted in the soil before the Plantagenets took their title, was not likely to mate with the daughter of a servant. Looking at herself there in the mirror, and knowing that the blue blood in her veins was pure as his, she began to marvel at herself for the thought.