They reached the landing before any of the party had returned, and Cecil sought her gable and threw herself on the bed, trusting to rest to remove some of her unpleasant sensations.

As she closed her eyes, she fell into a not unhappy reverie.  True, there were opposition and difficulties to contend with, but Bertie was her own, and she would never doubt him more.  How disinterested and straightforward he had been in freeing himself from debt before he spoke at all?  Even her father must acknowledge that; also that he had sufficient money for the career he had chosen, and only valued her fortune as a security and comfort to herself.

The unutterable luxury of being able to think of him unrestrained only dated from yesterday; for before there was always the humiliating dread that her idolatry was only returned in the same measure in which it was distributed among his somewhat numerous loves.  But now distrust had all melted away, and she cared not for the many who had hooked, and lost, since she had landed him.

Aroused by the splash of oars on the lake, Cecil tried to spring from the bed, but her limbs were stiff and heavy, and she dragged herself languidly to the window.  They were all on the landing but Du Meresq, and the quick pulsation stilled again.

“I suppose he went first to the hotel,” thought she, and began arranging her hair, disordered by the pillow.  She heard Lola running upstairs, and called her as she passed.

“I am coming, Cecil.  I have got a message for you from Bertie, which is, that he has only gone up to the hotel, and will be here in ten minutes.”

Cecil kissed the welcome Mercury, and drew her into the room shutting the door.

“Well, dear, and did you have a pleasant day?  What did you do?”

“Oh, yes,” said Lola, whose eyes were glittering with excitement, and who had altogether rather a strange manner.  “That is to say, pretty well.  We didn’t do much.”

“How was that?”

“Why, Bertie and Bluebell were so stupid.  They went away by themselves for ever so long.”

Cecil felt as if a hand had suddenly clutched her heart and frozen the blood in her veins.  Could that pale face, with wildly gleaming eyes, be the same so sweet and tranquil, that was carelessly smiling at the child an instant before?

“And do you know, Cecil,” pursued Lola, warming with her subject, and speaking with intense excitement, “Bertie kissed Bluebell.  I saw him do it.”

A pause, and the child, apparently gratified by the interest she had awakened, continued,—­

“I think Bluebell was crying, and he trying to console her; at any rate, I heard him say he ‘loved her very much.’”