"Mean to do!" she answered, swinging round and facing her; "I mean to have my revenge."
"O, Florence, it is wicked to talk so! Whom are you going to be revenged on--Ernest? It is not his fault if--if you are fond of him."
"Yes, it is his fault; but whether it is his fault or not, I suffer. Remember what I say, for it will come true; he shall suffer. Why should I bear it all alone? But he shall not suffer so much as she. I told her that I was fond of him, and she promised to leave him alone--do you hear that?--and yet she is taking him away from me to gratify her vanity--she, who can have anybody she likes."
"Hush, Florence! Don't give way to your temper so, or you will be overheard. Besides, I daresay that we are making a great deal of nothing; after all, she only gave him a rose."
"I don't care if we are overheard, and it is nothing. I guessed that it would be so, I knew it would be so, and I know what is coming now. Mark my words, within a month Ernest and my sweet sister will be sitting about on the cliff with their arms around each other's necks. I have only to shut my eyes, and I can see it. O, here is Jeremy! Is the carriage there, Jeremy? That's right. Come on, Dorothy, let us go and say good-night and be off. You will drop me at the cottage, won't you?"
Half an hour later the fly that had brought Miss Ceswick and Eva came round, and with it Ernest's dog-cart. But as Miss Ceswick was rather anxious about the injured wheel, Ernest, as in duty bound, offered to see them safe home, and ordering the cart to follow, got into the fly without waiting for an answer.
Of course Miss Ceswick went to sleep, but it is not probable that either Ernest or Eva followed her example. Perhaps they were too tired to talk; perhaps they were beginning to find out what a delightful companionship is to be found in silence; perhaps his gentle pressure of the little white-gloved hand, that lay unresisting in his own, was more eloquent than any speech.
Don't be shocked, my reader; you or I would have done the same, and thought ourselves very lucky fellows!
At any rate, that drive was over all too soon.
Florence opened the door for them; she had told the servant to go to bed.
When Eva reached the door of her room she turned round to say good-night to her sister; but the latter, instead of contenting herself with a nod, as was her custom, came and kissed her on the face.
"I congratulate you on your dress and on your conquest," and again she kissed her and was gone.
"It is not like Florence to be so kind," reflected her younger sister. "I can't remember when she kissed me last."
Eva did not know that as there are some kisses that declare peace, and set the seal on love, there are others that announce war, and proclaim the hour of vengeance or treachery. Judas kissed his Master when he betrayed Him.
CHAPTER IX
EVA FINDS SOMETHING
When Ernest woke on the morning after the ball it was ten o'clock, and he had a severe headache. This--the headache--was his first impression, but presently his eye fell upon a withering red rose that lay upon the dressing table, and he smiled. Then followed reflections, those confounded reflections that always dog the heels of everything pleasant in life, and he ceased to smile.
In the end he yawned and got up. When he reached the sitting-room, which looked cool and pleasant in contrast to the hot July sunshine that beat upon the little patch of bare turf in front of the house, and the glittering sea beyond, he found that the others had done their breakfast. Jeremy had gone out, but his sister was there, looking a little pale, no doubt from the late hours of the previous night.
"Good-morning, Doll!"
"Good-morning, Ernest," she answered, rather coldly. "I have been keeping your tea as warm as I can, but I'm afraid it is getting cold."
"You are a good Samaritan, Doll. I've got such a head! perhaps the tea will make it better."
She smiled as she gave it to him; had she spoke what was in her mind, she would have answered that she had "such a heart."
He drank the tea, and apparently felt better for it, for presently he asked her, in comparatively cheerful tones, how she liked the dance.
"O, very well, thank you, Ernest: how did you like it?"
"O, awfully! I say, Doll!"
"Yes, Ernest."
"Isn't she lovely?"
"Who, Ernest?"
"Who! why, Eva Ceswick, of course."
"Yes, Ernest, she is very lovely."
There was something about her tone that was not encouraging; at any rate he did not pursue his subject.
"Where is Jeremy?" he asked next.
"He has gone out."
Presently, Ernest, having finished his second cup of tea, went out too, and came across Jeremy mooning about the yard.
"Hulloa, my hearty! and how are you after your dissipations?"
"All right, thank you," answered Jeremy, sulkily.
Ernest glanced up quickly. The voice was the voice of Jeremy, but the tones were not his tones.
"What is up, old chap?" he said, slipping his arm through his friend's.
"Nothing."
"O yes, there is, though. What is it? Out with it! I am a splendid father confessor."
Jeremy freed his arm, and remained sulkier than ever. Ernest looked hurt, and the look softened the other.
"Well, of course, if you won't tell me, there is nothing more to be said"; and he prepared to move off.
"As though you didn't know!"
"Upon my honour I don't."
"Then if you'll come in here, I will tell you"; and Jeremy opened the door of the little outhouse, where he stuffed his birds and kept his gun and collection of eggs and butterflies, and motioned Ernest majestically in.
He entered and seated himself upon the stuffing-table, gazing abstractedly at a bittern that Jeremy had shot about the time that this story opened, and which was now very moth-eaten, and waved one melancholy leg in the air in a way meant to be imposing, but only succeeded in being grotesque.
"Well, what is it?" he interrogated of the glassy eye of the decaying bittern.
Jeremy turned his broad back upon Ernest--he felt that he could speak better on such a subject with his back turned--and, addressing empty space before him, said:
"I think it was precious unkind of you."
"What was precious unkind?"
"To
