Mrs. Drane was greatly shocked, but she agreed with her daughter that it would not be wise for Ralph to go to Thorbury until he could start for Barport. La Fleur was somewhat frightened when she found that her wilful delay of the telegram might occasion Mr. Haverley an hara.s.sing and anxious night in Thorbury, and was urgent in her endeavors to quiet him and persuade him to remain at home until morning. But it was not until Cicely had put in her last plea that the young man consented to give up his intention of going in search of the telegraph operator.

"Mr. Ralph," said she, "don't you think it would be awful if you were to send a message and get a bad answer to it, and have to stay there by yourself until the morning? I cannot bear to think of it; and telegraphic messages are always so hard and cruel. If I were you, I would rather go straight on and find out everything for myself."

Ralph looked down at her and at the tears upon her cheeks.

"I will do that," he said, and taking her hand, he pressed it thankfully.

Every preparation and arrangement was made for an early start, and Ralph wandered in and out of the house, impatient as a wild beast to break away and be gone. Cicely, whose soul was full of his sorrow, went out to him on the piazza, where he stood, looking at the late moon rising above the treetops.

"What a different man I should be," he said, "if I could think that Miriam was standing on the seash.o.r.e and looking at that moon."

Cicely longed to comfort him, but she could not say anything which would seem to have reason in it. She had tried to think that it might be possible that the despatch might not concern Miriam, but she could not do it. If it had been necessary to send a despatch and Miriam had been alive and well, it would have been from her that the despatch would have come. Cicely's soul was sick with sorrow and with dread, not only for the brother, but for herself, for she and Miriam were now fast friends.

But she controlled herself, and looking up with a smile, said, "What time is it?"

Ralph took out his watch and held the face of it toward the moon, which was but little past the full.

"It is a quarter to nine," he said.

"Well, then," said she, "I will ask Miriam, when I see her, if she was looking at the moon at this time."

"Do you believe," exclaimed Ralph, turning suddenly so that they stood face to face, "do you truly believe that we shall ever see her again?"

The question was so abrupt that Cicely was taken unawares. She raised her face toward the eager eyes bent upon her, but the courageous words she wished to utter would not come, and she drooped her head. With a swift movement, Ralph put his two hands upon her cheeks and gently raised her face. He need not have looked at her, for the warm tears ran down upon his hands.

"You do not," he said; and as he gazed down upon her, her face became dim. For the first time since his boyhood, tears filled his eyes.

At a quick sound of hoofs and wheels, both started; and the next moment the telegraph boy drove up close to the railing and held up a yellow envelope.

"One dollar for delivery," said he; "that's night rates. This come jest as the office was shetting up, and Mr. Martin said I'd got to deliver it to-night; but I couldn't come till the moon was up."

Cicely, who was nearer, seized the telegram before Ralph could get it.

"Drive round to the back of the house," she said to the boy, "and I will bring you the money."

She held the telegram, though Ralph had seized it.

"Don't be too quick," she said, "don't be too quick. There, you will tear it in half. Let me open it for you."

She deftly drew the envelope from his hand, and spread the telegram on the broad rail of the piazza, on which the moon shone full. Instantly their heads were close together.

"I cannot read it," groaned Ralph; "my eyes are--"

"I can," interrupted Cicely, and she read aloud the message, which ran thus,--

"Fear news of accident may trouble you. We are all well. Have written.

Miriam Haverley."

Ralph started back and stood upright, as if some one had shouted to him from the sky. He said not one word, but Cicely gave a cry of joy. Ralph turned toward her, and as he saw her face, irradiated by the moonlight and her sudden happiness, he looked down upon her for one moment, and then his arms were outstretched toward her; but, quick as was his motion, her thought was quicker, and before he could touch her, she had darted back with the telegram in her hand.

"I will show this to mother," she cried, and was in the house in an instant.

La Fleur was in the hall, where for some time she had been quietly standing, looking out upon the moonlight. From her position, which was not a conspicuous one, at the door of the enclosed stairway, she had been able to keep her eyes upon Ralph and Cicely; and held herself ready, should she hear Mrs. Drane coming down the stairs, to go up and engage her in a consultation in regard to domestic arrangements. She had known of the arrival of the telegraph boy, had seen what followed, and now listened with rapt delight to Cicely's almost breathless announcement of the joyful news.

After the girl went upstairs, La Fleur walked away; there was no need for her to stand guard any longer.

"It isn't only the telegram," she said to herself, "that makes her face shine and her voice quiver like that." Then she went out to congratulate Mr. Haverley on the news from his sister. But the young man was not there; his soul was too full for the restraints of a house or a roof, and he had gone out, bareheaded, into the moonlight to be alone with his happiness and to try to understand it.

When Mrs. Drane returned to her room, having gone down at her daughter's request to pay the telegraph messenger, she found her daughter lying on a couch, her face wet with tears. But in ten minutes Cicely was sitting up and chattering gayly. The good lady was rejoiced to know that there was no foundation for the evils they had feared, but she could not understand why her daughter, usually a cool-headed little thing and used to self-control, should be so affected by the news. And in the morning she was positively frightened when Cicely informed her that she had not slept a wink all night.

Mrs. Drane had not seen Ralph's face when he stretched out his arms toward her daughter.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

UNDISTURBED LETTUCE

When Ralph Haverley came in from his long moonlight ramble, he was so happy that he went to bed and slept as sound as rock. But before he closed his eyes he said to himself,--

"I will do that to-morrow; the very first thing to-morrow."

But people do not always do what they intend to do the very first thing in the morning, and this was the case with Ralph. La Fleur, who knew that a letter was expected, sent Mike early to the post-office, and soon after breakfast Ralph had a letter from Miriam. It was a long one; it gave a full account of the drowning accident and of some of her own experiences, but it said not one word of the message sent by Miss Panney, to whom Miriam alluded very slightly. It gave, however, the important information that Mrs. Bannister had been so affected by the dreadful scene on the beach that she declared she could not go into the ocean again, nor even bear the sight of it, and that, therefore, they were all coming home on the morrow.

"She will be here to-night," said Ralph, who knew the trains from Barport.

As soon as he had read the letter Ralph went to look for Cicely. She had come down late to breakfast, and he had been surprised at her soberness of manner. On the other hand, Mrs. Drane had been surprised at Ralph's soberness of manner, and she found herself in the unusual position of the liveliest person at the breakfast table.

"People who have heard such good news ought to be very happy," she thought, but she made no remark on the subject.

It was Cicely's custom to spend the brief time she allowed herself between breakfast and work, upon the lawn, or somewhere out of doors, but to-day Ralph searched in vain for her. He met La Fleur, however, and that conscientious cook, in her most respectful manner, asked him, if he happened to meet Miss Cicely, would he be so good as to give her a message?

"But I don't know where she is," said Ralph. "I have a letter to show her."

La Fleur wished very much to know what was in the letter, which, she supposed, explained the mystery of the telegrams, but at a moment like this she would not ask.

"She is in the garden, sir," she said. "I asked her to gather me some lettuce for luncheon. She does it so much more nicely than I could do it, or Mike. She selects the crispest and most tender leaves of that crimped and curled lettuce you all like so much, and I thought I would ask you, sir, if you met her, to be so very kind as to tell her that I would like a few sprigs of parsley, just a very few. I would go myself, sir, but there is something cooking which I cannot leave, and I beg your pardon for troubling you and will thank you, sir, very much if you--"

It was not worth while for her to finish her sentence, for Ralph had gone.

He found Cicely just as she stooped over the lettuce bed. She rose with a face like a peach blossom.

"I have a letter from Miriam," he said, "I will give it to you presently, and you may read the whole of it, but I must first tell you that she, with Mrs. Bannister and Dora, are coming home to-day. They will reach Thorbury late this afternoon. Isn't that glorious?"

All the delicate hues of the peach blossom went out of Cicely's face.

That everlasting person had come up again, and now he called her Dora, and it was glorious to have her back! She did not have to say anything, for Ralph went rapidly on.

"But before they leave Barport," he said, "I want to send Miriam a telegram. If Mike takes it immediately to Thorbury, she will get it before her train leaves."