"Oh, it is wonderful!" she breathed at last. "It it like a story in a
book! I can see it all--you tell it so well; and yet I feel you are not
telling half. And this Donna Elvira--what a good, kind woman she must
be!"
"She is," assented Derrick. "I wish she were also a happy one; but I'm
afraid she isn't. There is a kind of mystery about her--but I'm afraid
you won't understand from my poor attempt to describe her."
"Oh, yes, yes I do!" said Celia. "You make it all so plain. I should
like to meet her, to know her."
"I'll tell her so--when I go back," said Derrick.
What had happened? A moment before, the little wood had been all aglow
with the rays of the setting sun, her heart had been palpitating with a
sweet, delicious happiness; and now, all quite suddenly, the air had
become cold, a chill had struck to her heart. Celia's face paled, she
looked up at him and then away from him. With the toe of her dainty
shoe, she traced a pattern in the moss at her feet; and still with
downcast eyes, she said: "You--you are going back? Of course."
"Yes; I must go back," he said, in a dry voice. "As I told you, I have
only come over to do this business. I must go back soon."
"How--how soon?" she asked, scarcely knowing that she spoke.
"Oh, in a week or two, at longest," he replied, his eyes downcast, his
voice barely above a murmur.
There was silence for a moment; then she forced a smile and, with
difficulty raising her eyes to his, said: "Of course, you must. Well, I am--am glad to have seen you, to have
heard that you are prospering. I--I must be going back."
Again she made a movement, as if to rise; but he took her hand and
gripped it tightly, almost fiercely.
"Not yet," he said, his voice choked and thick. "You can't go till I
tell you----Oh, don't you know? You must know; something of the truth
must have travelled from my heart to yours all these months. Don't you
know that I love you?" he said breathlessly.
She sat quite still, her hand in his, her eyes fixed on the tree before
her; her heart was beating so fast that its pulsations seemed to stifle
her. But through her whole frame, through every nerve of her body, ran a
hot flood of ecstatic happiness. His words were still ringing in her
heart; mutely her lips were re-forming them: "I love you! I love you!"
So great, so ineffable was the joy, that her eyes closed with the desire
to shut out everything in the world but the one fact his dear lips had
voiced.