Christine was ill for many weeks, with Dr. Belford in daily attendance, and her faithful old Eliza to help Mrs. Murray with the nursing. All during the long fever, the gentle, little old lady, to whom Noel had her, watched and tended her with a mother’s devotion and love. The patient was far too ill to protest, and very soon she learned to lean upon and love Mrs. Murray as though she had indeed been her mother. Again poor Noel felt himself , ignored and excluded, as he alone was kept away from her, but his care for her was so above his care for himself that he never made a complaint.
He had learned from Eliza—whose mouth was shut so tight to the other servants that she went among them almost like a dumb woman—that on the day of his making the announcement concerning her husband to Christine, a messenger had brought Dallas a note, after reading which he had hurriedly put a few things into a valise and left the house. Since then he had not been heard from. Evidently Christine had warned him in her note and he had run away to escape the suit for bigamy. Noel had not suspected the poor girl’s in writing, but, on the whole, he was glad. It was the simplest and surest way of getting rid of him.
At last Dr. Belford had pronounced the patient convalescent, and she was sitting up and even moving about the up-stairs rooms.
One afternoon Noel came to the house, as usual, to make . As he mounted the steps he saw that by some accident the door had been left ajar. He bethought him to go in softly, in the hope of finding Mrs. Murray in one of the lower rooms and taking her by surprise. He had bought a big bunch of roses on the way. He crossed the hall softly and made his way to the little , attracted by the light of a wood fire, which looked cheery and comfortable on a day like this. It was burning rather low, but the room was still partly lighted from without, and as he was about to cross the threshold he saw a picture which made him pause.
On a deep lounge half turned toward the fire a girl in white was lying fast asleep. It was Christine. Her dark hair was all gathered loosely back and coiled in a large knot low down against her fair throat, from which the white lace of her gown fell backward, leaving its beautiful pureness bare. There was a charming air of foreign taste and fashioning about the whole costume. Poor Christine! She had put it on obediently when Mrs. Murray had brought it to her, selecting it from among the contents of her trunk as the most comfortable and suitable thing for the convalescent to wear. It had been long since she had worn or even looked at it, and it had brought back sad memories of her pretty wedding , but all her clothes had sad associations for her, and the ones she had worn more recently would have been worse than this. So she put it on unquestioningly, too listless to care much what she wore, a fact which did not prevent its being suitable to her.
She was very white, and the long black that lay against her cheek made a dark shadow under her eyes that made her look the more fragile. Her face was sad; the corners of the mouth piteously, and a look of trouble now and then slightly contracted the brows.
Noel, who had cautiously near, was seated in a low chair near her feet, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of waking her, and breaking the spell which seemed to hold him, also, in a sleep of . He made up his mind that he would remain and be near her when she waked. He had kept himself away from her long enough. Now he must see and talk with her. He sat so for some time, the red roses in his hands, and his steady, grave, intense d............