They retraced their steps, and found Miss Randolph and Oriana awaiting their presence at the breakfast-table.

CHAPTER VIII.

During the four succeeding days, the house hold at Riverside manor were much alarmed for Arthur’s safety, for a violent fever had ensued, and, to judge from the physician’s evasive answers, the event was doubtful.  The family were unremitting in their attentions, and Oriana, quietly, but with her characteristic self-will, insisted upon fulfilling her share of the duties of a nurse.  And no hand more gently smoothed the sick man’s pillow or administered more tenderly the cooling draught.  It seemed that Arthur’s sleep was calmer when her form was bending over him, and even when his thoughts were wandering and his eyes were restless with delirium, they turned to welcome her as she took her accustomed seat.  Once, while she watched there alone in the twilight, the open book unheeded in her hand, and her subdued eyes bent thoughtfully upon his face as he slept unconscious of her presence, she saw the white lips move and heard the murmur of the low, musical voice.  Her fair head was bent to catch the words—­they were the words of delirium or of dreams, but they brought a blush to her cheek.  And yet she bent her head still lower and listened, until her forehead rested on the pillow, and when she looked up again with a sigh, and fixed her eyes mechanically on the page before her, there was a trace of tears upon the drooping lashes.

He awoke from a refreshing slumber and it seemed that the fever was gone; for his glance was calm and clear, and the old smile was upon his lips.  When he beheld Oriana, a slight flush passed over his cheek.

“Are you indeed there, Miss Weems,” he said, “or do I still dream?  I have been dreaming, I know not what, but I was very happy.”  He sighed, and closed his eyes, as if he longed to woo back the vision which had fled.  She seemed to know what he had been dreaming, for while his cheek paled again, hers glowed like an autumn cloud at sunset.

“I trust you are much better, Mr. Wayne?”

“Oh yes, much better.  I fear I have been very troublesome to you all.  You have been very kind to me.”

“Do not speak so, Mr. Wayne,” she replied, and a tear glistened in her eyes.  “If you knew how grateful we all are to you!  You have suffered terribly for my sake, Mr. Wayne.  You have a brave, pure heart, and I could hate myself with thinking that I once dared to wrong and to insult it.”

“In my turn, I say do not speak so.  I pray you, let there be no thoughts between us that make you unhappy.  What you accuse yourself of, I have forgotten, or remember only as a passing cloud that lingered for a moment on a pure and lovely sky.  There must be no self-reproaches between us twain, Miss Weems, for we must become strangers to each other in this world, and when we part I would not leave with you one bitter recollection.”