I could not help laughing, and laughing made me cry. Miss
Cardigan promptly put me back on the cushions and bade me lie
still; and she sat in front of me there like a good shaggy
human watch dog. I should not say shaggy, for she was entirely
neat and trim; but there was something of sturdy and
uncompromising about her which suggested the idea. I lay
still, and by and by went off into a sleep. That restored me.
I woke up a couple of hours later all right and quite myself
again. I was able to rush through the bit of study I had
wanted; and went over to Mme. Ricard's just a minute before
school opened.
I had expected some uncomfortable questioning about my staying
out all night; but things do not happen as one expects. I got
no questioning, except from one or two of the girls. Mme.
Ricard was ill, that was the news in school; the other
teachers had their hands full, and did not give themselves any
extra trouble about the doings of so regular and trusted an
inmate as myself. The business of the day rolled on and rolled
off, as if last night had never been; only that I walked in a
dream; and when night came I was free to go to bed early and
open my budget of thoughts and look at them. From without, all
was safe.
All day my thoughts had been rushing off, away from the
schoolroom and from studies and masters, to look at a receding
railway train, and follow a grey coat in among the crowd of
its fellows, where its wearer mingled in all the business and
avocations of his interrupted course of life. Interrupted!
yes, what a change had come to his and to mine; and yet all
was exactly the same outwardly. But the difference was, that I
was thinking of Thorold, and Thorold was thinking of me. How
strange it was! and what a great treasure of joy it was. I
felt rich; with the most abounding, satisfying, inexhaustible
treasure of riches. All day I had known I was rich; now I took
out my gold and counted it, and could not count it, and gave
full-hearted thanks over it.
If the brightness wanted a foil, it was there; the gold
glittered upon a cloudy background. My treasure was not
exactly in my hand to enjoy. There might be many days before
Thorold and I saw each other's faces again. Dangers lay
threatening him, that I could not bear to think of; although I
knew they were there. And even were this cloud all cleared
away, I saw the edges of another rising up along the horizon.
My father and my mother. My mother especially; what would she
say to Daisy loving an officer in the Northern army? That
cloud was as yet afar off; but I knew it was likely to rise
thick and black; it might shut out the sun. Even so I my
treasure was my treasure still, through all this. Thorold
loved me and belonged to me; nothing could change that.
Dangers, and even death, would not touch it. My mother's
command could not alter it. She might forbid his marrying me;
I must obey her; but the fact that we loved each other was a
fact beyond her reach and out of her, power, as out of mine.
Thorold belonged to me, in this higher and indestructible
sense, and also I belonged to him. And in this joy I rejoiced,
and counted my treasure with an inexpressible triumph of joy
that it was uncountable.