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Three years had slipped away and Evadne still wore her cousin's ring. A great tenderness was growing up in her heart toward him. She yearned over him as only those can understand who know what it is to carry the burden of souls upon their hearts by night and day but no thought of love ever crossed her mind. To Evadne Hildreth, love was a wonderfully sacred thing. The ring fretted her and she longed to be freed from its presence, but Louis held her to her promise. If he only waited long enough, he persuaded himself, his patience would be rewarded. Some day this shy, sweet bird would nestle against his heart. In the meantime he would keep the ungenerous advantage which his illness had given him. He forgot that it needs more to tame a bird than merely putting it in a cage!
Isabelle had been intensely curious but her questions had elicited no satisfaction from her brother, and Evadne had answered simply, "Louis took a fancy to put it on my finger: I am wearing it to please him, that is all:" and even Isabelle found her cousin's sweet dignity an effectual bar against her morbid inquisitiveness.
They had seen comparatively little of each other. Evadne was constantly busy, either at private or hospital nursing, and very short were the furloughs which she spent under her uncle's roof. Louis had spent the first winter after his illness with his mother in the South of France, now he was in Florida, but he wrote regularly, and Evadne answered—when she could. Sweet, pleading letters which he read over and over and honestly tried to be better: but it was only for her sake; he knew no higher motive—yet.
It was a perfect day. Down by the river an alligator was sunning himself, and the resinous breath of the pine trees swept its aromatic fragrance over Louis as he lay at full length in a hammock with his hands behind his head. He had thrown the magazine he had been reading on the ground and it lay open at the article on Heredity which he had just finished. His desultory thoughts were roaming idly over the subject, when one, more far reaching than the rest, made him start lip with a sudden shock of unwelcome surprise.
"By Jove! Can it be that I am a victim of it too? It looks confoundedly like it, although even my sweet little Puritan has not felt it a sin against her conscience to keep me in the dark."
He thrust his fingers with an impatient gesture through his hair. "Now I come to think of it, the case grows deucedly clear. The South of France one winter and Florida this! Simple nervous prostration would seem to the uninitiated better fought in the exhilirating ozone of Colorado, or—the North Pole—than in this languorous atmosphere. 'An inherited tendency.' Is this the pleasant little legacy which my respected ancestor has bequeathed to his only grandson? It skipped the Judge, but it caught poor Uncle Lenox, and now it has nabbed me! What a fool I have been not to surmise what this confounded pain meant between my shoulders! Grandfather Hildreth kept himself alive with nostrums until he was seventy, but he was an invalid all his life. He ought to be cursed for his contemptible selfishness in bringing so much suffering upon the race! There's none of the taint about Evadne, bless her! Russe told me the Hospital examiners said they had never passed such a perfect specimen of health."
He stopped suddenly and bit his lips in pain. Would he not follow his grandfather's example—if he had the chance?
"What in the world is the meaning of all this?"
Louis had arrived by an earlier train than he was expected and only his mother was at home to greet him. The hall was in confusion, workmen's tools lay about and ladders stood against the walls. Mrs. Hildreth laughed lightly, as she laid her hand within her son's arm.
"Oh, they are only getting ready for the floral decorations," she said, "we give a reception to-morrow in honor of your return. How well you are looking, Louis. I am so delighted to have you at home."
"Thanks, lady mother. I do not need to ask how you have survived my absence. How is Evadne,—and the Judge and the girls?"
His mother laughed again as she drew him on the sofa beside her. She seemed in wonderfully good humor. "Rather a comprehensive question," she said. "Sit down and we will have a comfortable talk before the others get home. Your father looks wretchedly but he says there is nothing the matter. I suppose it is just overwork and the usual money strain. Isabelle too is not as well as I should like her to be. Suffers from nervousness a great deal, and depression. There is a new physician here now, a Doctor Randolph, who we think is going to help her, although he is very young; but she took a dislike to Doctor Russe because he belongs to the old school. And now I have a surprise for you. Marion is engaged!"
"Engaged! Why, you never hinted at it in your letters!"
"It has all been very sudden. I wrote you there was a young New Yorker very attentive to her."
"Yes, but that is an old story. There were two fellows 'very attentive' when I went away. How long since the present devotion culminated?"
"Just a week ago to-night: and they are so devoted!"
"A second Romeo and Juliet, eh?"—Louis' laugh had a bitter ring,—"By the way, what is his name?"
"Simpson Kennard."
"Brother Simp! Rich, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, very. In fact he is eligible in every way."
"I see," yawned Louis, "Possessed of all the cardinal virtues. It is a good thing his wealth is not all in his pockets, for they are apt to spring a leak. But Evadne—how is she?"
"Oh, she is always well, you know," said his mother carelessly. "There they come now."
"These Indian famines are a terrible business," said Judge Hildreth as they lingered over their dessert that evening. It was pleasant to have Louis and Evadne back again. He too was glad to see his son so well. "I don't see what the end is going to be."
"People say that about every calamity, Papa," said Isabelle, "but the world goes on just the same."
"Of course it does, Isabelle," said her brother. "You see we can't waste time over a few dying millions when we have to give a reception for instance."
"But that is a necessity, Louis," said Mrs. Hildreth, "we must pay our debts to society, you know."
"I am sure I don't see where I could economize," sighed Marion. "That lecturer last night was splendid and I would like to have given him thousands but I hadn't a dollar in my purse. I never have. I spent my last cent for chocolates yesterday."
Evadne smiled and sighed but said nothing. The lecturer the night before had felt his soul strangely stirred at the sight of her glowing face, and the plate when it passed her seat had borne a shining gold piece, but perhaps she had not as many temptations as Marion and Isabelle.
"I would have willingly filled you up a check with the cost of the floral decorations, Marion," said her father with a twinkle in his eye. "They would have purchased a good many bags of corn."
"But that is ridiculous!" said Isabelle. "What would a reception be without flowers, I should like to know? As it is, I expect it will be a poor affair compared to the Van Nuys' last week. We never seem to be able to do anything in proper style. You would better put your new Worth gown, on the collection plate, Marion, and appear in a morning dress to-morrow night. Louis would be the first one to be scandalized if you did!"
"Well but, Isabelle, I had to have something now. I have worn my other dresses so many times, I am perfectly ashamed."
"Of course, sis," said Louis gravely, "it was a most imperative expenditure. It is a strange coincidence that you should have chosen that particular make though. It has always been a fancy of mine that the Levite was robed in a Worth gown when he passed by on the other side."
"The sufferings must be awful," said Evadne, anxious to relieve Marion's embarrassment. "I saw in the paper to-day that——"
Mrs. Hildreth lifted her hands in mock alarm. "Pray spare us any recital of horrors, Evadne! I never want to hear about any of these dreadful things. What is the use, when one cannot help in any way?"
"You forget, Mamma," said Isabelle with a laugh, "that Evadne revels in horrors. What would be torture to our quivering nerves, to her atrophied sensibilities is merely an occurrence of every day."
Louis gave a sudden start in his chair, but on the instant Evadne laid her hand upon his arm, and its light touch soothed his anger as it had been wont to soothe his pain.
Evadne Hildreth was climbing the heights of victory. She had learned to cover her wounds with a smile.