CHAPTER XLV. “HOPE DEFERRED MAKETH THE HEART SICK.

Ah, how slowly pass the days and weeks when parted from one we love!

“Oh, absence is the night of love, Lovers are very children then, Fancy ten thousand feverish ills Till their loved one returns again!”

Beresford knew all the meaning of the poet’s plaint as the slow days and nights dragged their weary lengths along without tidings of Floy.

For, though a week had passed away, Landon had no encouraging news to give.

The suspense began to tell on the weakened nerves of the impatient lover, and his improvement became less marked as hope and expectation became dulled in his heart.

But in vain they urged him to desert the hot city for the cool breezes of Newport.

“It would seem like deserting my darling. I can not go until I find her,” he answered, resolutely; and so the burning August days found them lingering still in the city, though the aristocratic avenue was deserted save for them. They would not leave him there to fret and grieve alone over his trouble.

He was bitterly impatient over his lingering weakness that prevented him from taking an active part in the search for Floy.

“Be patient, dear; Mr. Landon will surely find her soon!” Alva would exclaim each day, her own heart aching in sympathy with his pain.

She brought from Floy’s room, for his eyes to feast on, the books the young girl had read and marked, and it was a melancholy joy to him to read every line her dear eyes had rested on or her pencil marked. It seemed to bring their sundered hearts closer together.

One day she chanced on a little blank-book in which Floy had been wont to scribble her girlish fancies when alone, and she found that many of her sweet thoughts had been clothed in poetic diction.

Poetry is the natural language of love, and Floy, in her sorrow, had fallen so often into this tender speech, that Alva’s tears fell like rain as she read the simple lines.

There was one little poem that bore date the very day of St. George’s home-coming, so she could not doubt that it was written for her brother.

“Who would have dreamed that bright, arch little Floy had such depths of womanly tenderness in her nature?” she exclaimed, when telling St. George about the sweet little verses.

“You will let me see them!” he cried, eagerly; and Alva assented, saying:

“Yes, for I am sure they were composed by Floy herself, and intended for you, my dear. They are very simple and sad, and perhaps have but little literary merit, yet they breathe the love and constancy of a noble heart.”

She gave him the little book to read, and he turned the pages as though they were something sacred, for here and there they were blistered with Floy’s sad tears.

The letter that Floy had left for Alva had told but little of her love, and breathed only her indomitable pride. How different was the little book that in her hurry she had forgotten to take away!

Every tender word found an echo in St. George’s devoted heart, and when he came to the page that bore date of his home-coming, he was not ashamed of the tears that rose when he read the sad and tender lines so full of her love and sorrow and tenderness.

“YOU WILL KNOW.

“When lighter loves shall fail you in your need, When the prop you lean on proves a broken reed, When wrong and falsehood cause your heart to bleed;

“When all the world seems hollow, cold, and dark, When for one tender voice you vainly hark, When quenched in night seems Love’s ethereal spark;

“And when, heart-broken, you remember me, The love forsaken in youth’s wanton glee, To roam the wide world fickle, fancy free;

“And you return repentant and forlorn, Shamed in your soul that ever you were born, Scarred with the lash of heartless worldings’ scorn;

“And when you find, despite the cruel past, The patient heart that held your image fast, Forgiving all, then you will know at last;

“How I have loved you, how my heart has kept Its faith through unfaith, though of joy bereft When naught but hope and memory were left;

“How I have loved you when I dry your tears, And calm your wild remorse and anxious fears, And point your hopes to brighter future years.”

St. George read the sad words over and over till they were imprinted on his memory. They had the greatest fascination for him in their hopeless love and sorrow.

He tried to write some verses in reply to them, but after many efforts he was chagrined to find that he did not possess the least poetic faculty. He could rhyme “love” with “dove” to be sure, but the lines were not even.

He threw aside the pencil, crying, tenderly:

“Oh, my little love, how cruelly you have misunderstood me! But only let me find you again, bonnie Floy, and I will show you that I, too, can love with changeless constancy.”

But oh, how far away that blessed time seemed; for Floyd Landon failed to find any clew to the beautiful runaway, and at last he appeared at the house saying rather abruptly that he wished to give up the case.