“When ye man lies sick in ye hospital and ye woman bends over him and he is too weak to raise his head, she can let her head fall down on his; it is only the law of gravitation.  But not while she is giving him ye physick.  If ye woman is riding in ye carriage and ye horses run away; and ye man she loves is standing in ye bushes and rushes out and seizes ye horses but is dragged, when he lies in ye road in ye swoon, ye woman can send ye driver around behind ye carriage and kiss him then—­as she always does in ye women their novels but never does in ye life.  There is one time when any woman can freely kiss ye man she loves:  in ye dreame.  It is ye safest way, and ye best.  No one knows; and it does not disappoint as it often does disappoint when ye are awake.

“Lastly when ye beautiful swain that ye woman loved is dead, she way go into ye room where he lies white and cold and kiss him then:  but she waited too long.”

Marguerite let the book fall as though an arrow had pierced her.  At the same time she heard the librarian approaching.  She quickly restored the volume to its place and drew out another book.  The librarian entered the alcove, smiled at Marguerite, peeped over her shoulder into the book she was reading, searched for another, and took it away.  When she disappeared, Marguerite rose and looked; Lady Bluefields was gone.

She could not banish those heart-breaking words:  “When ye beautiful swain that ye woman loved is dead.”  The longing of the past days, the sadness, the languor that was ecstasy and pain, swept back over her as she sat listening now, hoping for another footstep.  Would he not come?  She did not ask to speak with him.  If she might only see him, only feel him near for a few moments.

She quitted the library slowly at last, trying to escape notice; and passed up the street with an unconscious slight drooping of that aerial figure.  When she reached her yard, the tree-tops within were swaying and showing the pale gray under-surfaces of their leaves.  A storm was coming.  She turned at the gate, her hat in her hand, and looked toward the cloud with red lightnings darting from it:  a still white figure confronting that noonday darkness of the skies.

“Grandmother never loved but once,” she said.  “Mamma never loved but once:  it is our fate.”

III

“Anna,” said Professor Hardage that same morning, coming out of his library into the side porch where Miss Anna, sitting in a green chair and wearing a pink apron and holding a yellow bowl with a blue border, was seeding scarlet cherries for a brown roll, “see what somebody has sent me.”  He held up a many-colored bouquet tied with a brilliant ribbon; to the ribbon was pinned an old-fashioned card.

“Ah, now, that is what comes of your being at the ball,” said Miss Anna, delighted and brimming with pride.  “Somebody fell in love with you.  I told you you looked handsome that night,” and she beckoned impatiently for the bouquet.