"More cream, monsieur? Oh, but this fruit is delicious! And I believe there is a grand difference in the qualities of city and country cream."
"The difference in the favor of the country living, eh? I say, Co., don't you think your appetite is rather better than is exactly expected, or in order, for a widow in the second stage of her grief?"
Things were moving just now as Mr. Davlin approved, and he felt inclined to be jocular.
Cora laughed merrily. Then holding up a pretty, berry-stained hand, she said, with mock solemnity, "That is the last, my greatly shocked brother. But didn't you inform Mr. Arthur that we should accept of his kind offer to survey the woods and grounds of Oakley in his company, and isn't this the day, and almost the hour?"
"So it is; I had forgotten."
It was not long before the pair were equipped, and sauntering slowly in the direction of the Oakley estate.
Their morning's enterprise was more than rewarded, and the cause of the widow was in a fair way to victory, when, after having politely refused to lunch with Mr. Arthur on that day, and gracefully promised to dine at Oakley on the next day but one, they bade adieu to that flattered and fascinated gentleman, and left him at the entrance of his grounds.
Then they sauntered slowly back, keeping to the wooded path. Arriving at the fallen tree, the scene of so many interviews between Madeline and Lucian, Cora seated herself on the mossy trunk and announced her determination to rest.
Accordingly her escort threw himself upon the soft grass, and betook himself to his inevitable cigar, while he closed his eyes and allowed the vision of Madeline to occupy the place now usurped by Cora. Very absorbing the vision must have been, for he gave an almost nervous start as Cora's voice broke the stillness:
"Lucian, did you ever see this runaway daughter of Mr. Arthur's?"
Lucian started unmistakably now. Then he employed himself in pulling up tufts of the soft grass, pretending not to have heard.
"Lucian!" impatiently.
"Eh, Co., what is it?" affecting a yawn.
"I ask, did you ever see this Madeline Payne, who ran away recently?"
"I? Oh, no. Old fellow always kept her shut up too close, I fancy. They say she was pretty, and you are the first pretty woman I have seen in these parts, Co."
"Well, then, I'm sorry you didn't," quoth Cora, "for from motives of delicacy I really don't care to inquire of others, and I have just curiosity enough to wish to know how she looked."
"Sorry I can't enlighten you, Co. Get it all out of the old fellow after the joyful event."
"Umph! Well, that business prospers, mon brave. We shall win, I think, as usual."
"Yes; and never easier, Co."
"Well, I don't anticipate much trouble in landing our fish. But come along, Lucian, this romantic dell might make you forget luncheon; it can't have that effect on me."
Cora gathered her draperies about her, and prepared to quit the little grove, her companion following half reluctantly.
CHAPTER IX.
GONE!
Hours that seemed days; days that seemed years; weeks that seemed centuries; yet they all passed, and Madeline Payne scarce knew, when they were actually gone, that they were not all a dream.
Life, after that first yielding of heart and brain, had been a delirium; then a conscious torture of mind and body; next a burden almost too great to bear; and then a dreamy lethargy. Heaven be praised for such moods; they are saviors of life and reason in crises such as this through which the stricken girl was passing.
Madness had wrought upon her, and her ravings had revealed some otherwise dark places and blanks in her story to her guardian and nurses. Pain had tortured her. Death wrestled with her, and then, because he could inspire her with no fear of him, because she mocked at his terrors and wooed him, fled away.
In his place came Life, to whom she gave no welcoming smile. But Life stayed, for Life is as regardless of our wishes as is Death.
Forms had hovered about her; kindly voices, sweet voices, had murmured at her bedside. At times, an angel had held the cooling draught to her thirsty lips. At last these dream-creatures resolved themselves into realities:
Doctor Vaughan, who had ministered to her with the solicitude of a brother, the gentleness of a woman, and the goodness of an angel.
Olive Girard who, leaving all other cares, was ever at her bedside, and who came to that place at a sacrifice of feeling, after a wrestling with pride, bringing a bitterness of memory, and a patient courage of heart, that the girl could not then realize.
Henry, too, black of skin, warm of heart; who waited in the outer court, and seemed to allow himself full and free respiration only when the girl was pronounced out of danger.
Out of danger! What a misapplication of words!
From the scene of conflict, at the last flutter of Death's gloomy mantle, comes the man of medicine; watch in hand, boots a tiptoe, face grave but triumphant. His voice bids a subdued farewell to the somberness proper to a probable death-bed, coming up just a note higher in the scale of solemnities, as it announces to the eager, trembling, waiting ones,
"The danger is past!"
Death, the calm, the restful, the never weary; Death, the friend of long suffering, and world weariness and despair; Death, the rescuer, the sometime comforter – has gone away with empty arms and reluctant tread, and – Life, flushed, triumphant, seizes his rescued subject and flings her out into the sea of human lives, perchance to alight upon some tiny green islet or, likelier yet, to buffet about among black waters, or encounter winds and storms, upheld only by a half-wrecked raft or floated by a scarce-supporting spar.
And she is out of danger!
Hedged around about by sorrow, assailed by temptation, overshadowed by sin. And, "the danger is over!"
Buffeted by the waves of adversity; longing for things out of reach; running after ignis fatui with eager outstretched hands, and careless, hurrying feet, among pitfalls and snares. And, out of danger!
Open your eyes, Madeline Payne; lift up your voice in thanksgiving; you have come back to the world. Back where the sun shines and the dew falls; where the flowers are shedding their perfume and song birds are making glad music; where men make merry and women smile; where gold shapes itself into palaces and fame wreathes crowns for fair and noble brows; where beauty crowns valor and valor kisses the lips of beauty. And where the rivers sparkle in the sunlight, and, sometimes, yield up from their embrace cold, dripping, dead things, that yet bear the semblance of your kind – all that is left of beings that were once like you!
Out of danger!
Where want, and poverty, and – God help us! – vice, hide their heads in dim alleys and under smoky garret roofs. Where beaten mothers and starving children dare hardly aspire to the pure air and sunlight, the whole world for them being enshrined in a crust of bread. Where thieves mount upwards on ladders beaten from pilfered gold, and command cities and sway nations. Where wantonness laughs and thrives in gilded cages, and starves and dies in mouldy cellars.
Out of danger!
Madeline, the place that was almost yours, in the land of the unknowable, is given to another. The waters of death have cast you back upon the shores of the living. You are "out of danger!"
What was to become of Madeline, now that they had brought her back to life? This was a question which occurred to the two who so kindly interested themselves in the fate of the unknown and headstrong girl.
While they planned a little, as was only natural, yet they knew from what they had