“It’s very strange,” thought I.  “Bessie’s pique is not apt to last so long.  She must indeed be angry.”

And I went over each detail of our last night’s talk, from her first burst of “Take me with you!” to my boggling answers, my fears, so stupidly expressed, that it would be anything but a picturesque bridal-trip, and the necessity that there was for rapid traveling and much musty, old research.

“What a fool I was not to take her then and there!  She is myself:  why shouldn’t I, then, be selfish?  When I do what of all things I want to, why can’t I take it for granted that she will be happy too?” And a hot flush of shame went over me to think that I had been about to propose to her, to my own darling girl, that we should be married as soon as possible after I returned from Europe.

Her love, clearer-sighted, had striven to forestall our separation:  why should we be parted all those weary weeks? why put the sea between us?

I had accepted all these obstacles as a dreary necessity, never thinking for the moment that conventional objections might be overcome, aunts and guardians talked over, and the whole matter arranged by two people determined on their own sweet will.

What a lumbering, masculine plan was mine! After I returned from Europe! I grew red and bit my lips with vexation.  And now my dear girl was shy and hurt.  How should I win back again that sweet impulse of confidence?

Presently the household began to stir.  I heard unbarring and unbolting, and craftily retreated to the gate, that I might seem to be just coming in, to the servant who should open the door.

It was opened by a housemaid—­not the Mary of the night before—­who stared a moment at seeing me, but on my asking if Miss Bessie was ready yet to walk, promised smilingly to go and see.  She returned in a moment, saying that Miss Bessie begged that I would wait:  she was hurrying to come down.

The child!  She has slept too soundly.  I shall tell her how insensate she must have been, how serenely unconscious when the flower came in at the window.

The clock on the mantel struck seven and the half hour before Bessie appeared.  She was very pale, and her eyes looked away at my greeting.  Passively she suffered herself to be placed in a chair, and then, with something of her own manner, she said hurriedly, “Don’t think I got your note, Charlie, last night, or I wouldn’t, indeed I wouldn’t, have kept you waiting so long this morning.”

“Didn’t Mary bring it to you?” I asked, surprised.

“Yes:  that is, she brought it up to my room, but, Charlie dear, I wasn’t there:  I wasn’t there all night.  I did shut my door, though I heard you calling, and after a little while I crept out into the entry and looked over the stairs, hoping you were there still, and that I could come back to you.  But you were not there, and everything was so still that I was sure you had gone—­gone without a word.  I listened and listened, but I was too proud to go down into the parlor and see.  And yet I could not go back to my room, next Aunt Sloman’s.  I went right up stairs to the blue room, and stayed there.  Mary must have put your note on my table when she came up stairs.  I found it there this morning when I went down.”