When day dawned I was still undecided, only that it was
to be.
"You are going away early," said Coralie, as I ordered my horse. "Surely
you will not be away all day, Sir Edgar?"
"I am going to Harden Manor, and cannot say when I shall return. Do not
wait dinner for me--I may dine there."
"It will be a long, dark day," she said, with a sigh. "Do not be
late--every hour will seem like two."
She hovered round me, asking many questions, evidently seeking to know
my business there. When my horse was brought to the door, she came to me
with a delicate spray of heliotrope.
"Let me fasten this in your coat, Sir Edgar. No gentleman looks
completely dressed without a flower. You do not know what heliotrope
means. Men never--or, at least, very seldom--care for the sweetest of
all languages--the language of flowers. What that heliotrope means,
cousin, I say to you."
It was not until some weeks afterward that, looking quite accidentally
over an old book, I discovered the spray of heliotrope meant, "I love
you."
The beautiful picture of this fair, passionate woman died from my mind
as I went to seek one a thousand times more fair.
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