CHAPTER XIV.
DORA’S GRIEF.
Madame Alroyd and Dora, on leaving the institute, drove rapidly back to the Glenburn House, where they had an elegant suite of rooms.
Madam was in ecstasies over the young orator—the more so, because he was one of her own countrymen, and had borne off the palm in the face of all the natives.
She kept up an incessant chattering during the drive, extolling his eloquence, praising his manly beauty and elegant manners, and ended by declaring that they must manage some way to get acquainted with him.
Dora, on the contrary, sat silent and sad, scarcely heeding her aunt’s many expressions of delight. She was wounded to her heart’s core that Robert had not given her a smile of recognition, nor even a glance of his eye, to show that he was glad she had been present to witness his triumph.
His pale, cold look haunted her. Perhaps he thought her unmaidenly—wanting in womanly delicacy, to thus force herself unasked upon his presence and notice; and her delicate cheek burned with shame and mortification as the thought presented itself to her.
She wished now that she had given heed to her aunt, who had tried to persuade her not to come. But from the moment she heard when the exercises were to take place, her heart had been set upon it; and although Madame Alroyd deemed it a wild, unaccountable freak of Dora’s to break in upon their pleasure trip and go so far out of their way, she at length yielded the point, as she always did, to gratify every wish of her darling.
“What is the matter with my pet?” she said, when they had removed their outer wrappings, and she noticed for the first time Dora’s sad face. “Were you not pleased with our countryman’s valedictory? But I need not ask you that, for your face was radiant during the whole of it, and I began to fear that, at last, my little girl had lost her heart. And no wonder, for I almost wished myself young again, if only for the privilege of trying to win the heart of our handsome hero of to-day. Eh, Dora?”
And madam laughed at what she considered a very bright saying.
A vivid blush spread itself over Dora’s fair face at this sally, which, upon noticing, Madame Alroyd laughed again, and exclaimed:
“Ah! that’s it, is it? Surely I had not given myself credit for quite so much shrewdness.”
Poor Dora could bear no more, but burst into a flood of tears.
Her heart was full, well-nigh to bursting, and she longed to unburden her mind that she might gain sympathy and comfort. She had kept her secret thus far sacred; but its weight was getting too heavy for her to bear alone.
Still she dreaded to reveal it, lest she should displease her aunt, who, she knew, was hoping great things for her in the future.
“What is it, my darling? Have I wounded you so deeply? Forgive me; I was only rallying you on your somber looks.”
Her darling’s tears alarmed her; and, going to Dora, she took her in her arms, and fondly kissed away the bright drops as they fell.
For a few minutes Dora could not answer, for her sobs.
But at length she suddenly sat up, and wiping her eyes, said earnestly, looking her aunt in the face:
“Auntie, am I very much changed since you took me to live with you?”
“Yes, dear, I think you are a good deal changed about many things; still you have many of your girlish ways and looks about you even now. You are Dora yet, but with considerable development, and a good deal of polish added. But why do you ask me such a question, my love?”
“Because—because——”
She hesitated a moment, deeply confused, then went on.
“Do you think if a friend had not seen me for six years, he would know me now?”
“What do you mean, Dora? Did you ever know Mr. Ellerton when he was a boy?” asked madam, suddenly, a light breaking in upon her mind, and half explaining Dora’s sadness.
“Answer me, please, auntie, and then I will tell you what I mean,” pleaded Dora, earnestly, her cheeks taking a still deeper hue.
“I can’t say confidently whether he would recognize you or not,” she said, answering her question. “He might think there was something familiar about you, and yet seeing you in such a crowd, not feel confident you were the same person. You may have changed more to other eyes than to mine you know. But what has that to do with your tears, my pet?”
“One more question, auntie, first,” persisted Dora, turning away her burning face from madam’s piercing gaze. “Did you notice Mr. Ellerton when he picked up my bouquet?”
“Yes, dear,” replied her aunt, starting violently, and becoming more and more convinced that the two were old friends. She went on.
“He gazed very earnestly at you for a few moments. He then turned his look upon the flowers again, and suddenly became very pale and abstracted. I looked at you then, and your eyes were downcast, while I thought you looked confused, about a very little thing—if throwing a bouquet could make you lose your self-possession.”
“It wasn’t that, auntie,” returned Dora, desperately. “I—I—put a note in that bouquet.”
“Dora—Dora Dupont!” cried Madame Alroyd, in a voice of amazement, and lifting her hands in horror. “You don’t mean to tell me that you did such an indelicate thing as that! I don’t wonder now at his strange looks. Did you ever know that young man before?”
“Yes, auntie,” replied her niece, in a low, clear voice. “Robert Ellerton is my husband!”
“What!” shrieked the old lady, bounding from her seat like an India rubber ball, and gazing upon Dora as if she thought she was demented.
“It is true, auntie,” said she, sadly, “and the note I put among my flowers was to tell him I was here, and asking him to come to me.”
“Is the child crazy? I believe you are. Oh, I wish we had never come here now. For pity’s sake tell me what you mean, child!” she muttered wildly, while she walked the floor with a woeful face and wrung her hands.
“Sit down, auntie, and be quiet, and I will tell you all about it,” replied Dora, calmly; intensely relieved that her secret was out, and a secret no longer.
She led Madame Alroyd to an easy-chair, then bringing a footstool she sat down at her feet. She laid her head lovingly in her lap, and then repeated the story of her marriage, her love for Robert, how it had grown with her growth, and strengthened with her strength. And this was the reason why she had persisted in coming to be present at his graduation.
She showed her the locket, which she had always worn next to her heart, and Madame Alroyd felt, as she gazed upon the honest and handsome face of our hero, that treachery or fickleness could not lurk in the heart of one who possessed such truthful eyes, and such a frank, open countenance.
She had listened in speechless amazement to the strange tale, and when Dora finished, she asked in a husky voice:
“Why have you never told me this before, Dora?”
“I didn’t dare to, auntie. I feared to displease you, and above all, I feared to be ridiculed about it. I thought you would say just as everybody else did, who knew it, that ‘it was a foolish, childish affair,’ and try to persuade me to consent to a separation.”
Dora buried her burning face in the folds of madam’s dress, and sobbed afresh.
Her aunt laid her hand fondly upon that golden-crowned head, and stroked it tenderly, while she sat for a few minutes in deep and troubled thought. At last she said:
“And do you love him now, darling, well enough to consider yourself bound to him for life?”
“Oh! yes, auntie, only—I am afraid he has forgotten his love for me.”
And again the tears poured forth.
“Why, love?” asked madam.
“Because,” she replied, when she could control her voice, “when I looked up after he found the note, he sat pale and cold as a marble statue. You say you saw it too. I hoped he would at least give me one look of remembrance; but no, he did not, and my heart sank like lead in my bosom. Just then you called me, and I did not dare to look again. I felt so ashamed and grieved.”
“What did you write, darling?”
Dora repeated word for word what she had written.
“There was nothing that you need feel at all ashamed of; and if he is true to you, he will seek you the first moment he is at liberty. And I don’t believe a man with such a face could be untrue!”
“Bless you, auntie!” exclaimed Dora, giving her a little hug, “you make me very happy by saying so.”
“Perhaps,” resumed madam, “he was so taken by surprise that he could not believe it at first, and if you had looked at him again you might have come away with a happier heart.”
Truly she was a “shrewd one at guessing,” for she could not know how nearly the truth she came!
“Do you really think so?” asked Dora, eagerly, the bright look coming again to her eyes.
“I hope that may be the truth of it,” replied her aunt, thoughtfully. “But if it should not—nay, darling, try to look at it bravely,” she added, as Dora shuddered, and uttered a little moan. “If you should discover that, during the long years of hard study, his heart should have forgotten its allegiance to the little girl whom he married upon the impulse of a moment—or if, perchance, some German beauty has usurped your place, I know it would be hard, but it is best to look at the matter calmly—would you—could you desire to force yourself upon him as his wife?”
“Never! I would let my heart break—I would die first!” exclaimed Dora, with glittering eyes and heaving bosom. “But, oh!” she added, a moment after, with quivering lips, “I cannot believe anything so dreadful of Robbie. I feel that he is true. I could almost say I know he is.”
“Ah!” replied Madame Alroyd, smiling at her returning trust, and patting her tenderly upon the cheek.
“Ah, could he see you now, your faith alone would win him. We will hope the best of your hero, and try to wait with patience his coming. And so my pet could not trust the old woman with her secret?”
“No, it was not I could not trust you. I could not bear to have my love made light of.”
“Ah, you did not know that this old and withered heart was once as trusting and fresh as your own. But we will not talk of that now,” she said, with a sigh; then added, softly, “My own darling, I love you too dearly to ever make light of anything which you consider sacred; so don’t ever shut me out in the cold again.”
Dora threw her arms around her aunt’s neck, and said, while she rained kisses upon her wrinkled face:
“You are the best and dearest auntie in the whole world, and I love you—almost as well as I do somebody else.”
Madame Alroyd lovingly returned her embrace, while at the same time she slyly wiped a tear from her eye.
The dressing-bell for dinner now rang, and both hastened to make their toilets; while Dora’s heart was relieved of half its burden by the blessed influence of love and sympathy.