summer days, till when the leaves were lying in brown showers upon the sodden earth, she had grown silent, shy, and distant, and so cold that he thought all hope was gone. He went away in November; and when he returned, his love unspoken became torture to his upright nature; he could not bear to live there day by day, to see her so often, to let her kiss him as a daughter might have done, and all the while that hidden passion burning in his heart. But after his temporary absence she had changed again; she was more as she had been, gentle, playfully loving; and so one day he had spoken. He told her of her dying father's words; how his great wish had been that she should never feel the loss he had caused her; how her happiness was his first object in life; and how that life would be indeed worthless and barren, should he go back to it alone. Grateful, she answered as he wished, and Ralph held in his arms as his betrothed wife the child he had promised to watch over in the silence of the Indian dawn.
'But you must give me time,' she had said timidly. 'I have never thought of you but as my guardian, Ralph.' She dropped the name of her childhood then, as a tacit acknowledgment that those days were over, and that she would learn to love him henceforth, not with a child's grateful unquestioning love, but with the tenderness of a wife.
She was the only one surprised by the event; all the neighbourhood had known it long before; so had Mrs Loraine and Emma; so had Katharine, whose wedding-day was now approaching, and whose bridegroom was Sir Michael Leyland. The drawing-room door opened, and Louise entered into the uncertain light, wearing the dress he had chosen for her – white bridal-looking silk, and holly wreaths like those she had worn last year. She went up to him composedly, with none of a young fiancée's usual bashfulness.
'Do you like my dress, Ralph?' she said, looking up with her sweet dark eyes, as he bent down and touched the rosy lips.
'I do,' he answered. 'You are always lovely, darling; last year I thought the same, but then things were different. I did not dare to hope for such happiness as this.'
'Are you happy, Ralph?'
'Happier than I have ever been in my whole life,' he whispered.
Then the others came in, and they started for the annual ball at Leigh Park. Vere Leveson had returned a week ago; and as he stood among his father's guests there was a troubled look on his face which deepened ever as the white silk folds of the holly-wreathed dress brushed past him, or the dark eyes watching its wearer met hers. At last he went to her.
'Are you engaged for this, Miss Wrayworth?' he said abruptly.
'No,' she answered.
'Then you will give it to me?'
Once more he held her in his arms, once more her hand rested in his, as they glided slowly round the room. Vere did not speak till the waltz was ended, and then he led her to the same window where they had stood a year ago. The same stars were shining down on the same world, only that night there was no snow-shroud over the dead flowers, and the moon was half hidden by a great splash of cloud. The same first faint Christmas bells were sounding in the distance, mingled with the echoes of a carol sung by boys' clear voices, telling for the angels the old story they had told so long ago.
'I wish you a merry Christmas,' Vere said, looking down on her with a half-scornful smile. 'What mockery there is in that salutation sometimes. If you were to say it to me, for instance.'
'Indeed I hope you will have one,' she answered timidly.
'I must go a long way to find it then,' he muttered. 'But I beg your pardon, Miss Wrayworth; I must congratulate you. I met – your sister I was going to say – Miss Loraine I mean, as I was on my way to call upon you the other day, and she told me of your engagement.'
'But you did not come,' said Louise.
'No; I thought you would be occupied. I congratulate you,' he repeated.
'Thank you,' she answered very low.
'Major Loraine is completely calculated to make a wife happy, I should think,' said Vere, in the same cold scornful tone.
She lifted her head quickly. 'Indeed he is; he is the best, noblest, most generous man that breathes!'
'And you love him?'
'He has been everything to me all my life long, Mr Leveson – father, brother, friend. Would you not have me do what I can to prove my gratitude?'
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