“I knew you would not disappoint me. For this promise I am more grateful than words can express, since it takes away all fear for Felix, and shows me that I was right in appealing to the heart which you try to kill. Ah! be your best self always, and so make life a blessing, not the curse you often call it,” she added, giving him a smile like sunshine, a cordial glance which was more than he could bear.
“With you I am. Stay, and show me how to do it,” he began, stretching both hands towards her with an almost desperate urgency in voice and gesture.
But Gladys neither saw nor heard; for at that moment Felix came through the hall singing one of the few perfect love songs in the world,—
“See, he does keep his promise to me: I knew he would come back!” she cried delightedly, and hurried to meet him, leaving Helwyze nothing but the passion-flowers to fill his empty hands.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Back again, earlier than before. But not to stay long, thank Heaven! By another month we will be truly at home, my Gladys,” whispered Canaris, as they went up the steps, in the mellow September sunshine.
“I hope so!” she answered, fervently, and paused an instant before entering the door; for, coming from the light and warmth without, it seemed as dark and chilly as the entrance to a tomb.
“You are tired, love? Come and rest before you see a soul.”
With a new sort of tenderness, Canaris led her up to her own little bower, and lingered there to arrange the basket of fresh recruits she had brought for her winter garden: while Gladys lay contentedly on the couch where he placed her, looking about the room as if greeting old friends; but her eyes always came back to him, full of a reposeful happiness which proved that all was well with her.
“There! now the little fellows sit right comfortably in the moss, and will soon feel at home. I’ll go find Mother Bland, and see what his Serene Highness is about,” said the young man, rising from his work, warm and gay, but in no haste to go, as he had been before.
Gladys remembered that; and when, at last, he left her, she shut her eyes to re-live, in thought, the three blissful months she had spent in teaching him to love her with the love in which self bears no part. Before the happy reverie was half over, the old lady arrived; and, by the time the young one was ready, Canaris came to fetch her.