But without doubt she was the girl who had given her the orange-coloured salvia that still flourished in the garden, and had planted it with her, while Aunt Cathie watered freely. But to-day this young mother, on seeing Lucia, had turned quickly to her child.
"Oh, take care, my darling!" she had said; "there is a step."
But there was no step, and Lucia quite understood. And when she got home that day she plucked up every one of the orange salvias.
She had not written to Maud; she had not written to anybody. All that could be offered to her, she felt, must be offered out of pity, and the gift, made in pity, was impossible to accept. But through all these six months she had kept alive a little flame of hope, though all the time she believed that she cherished and blew on a wick that had long ago been quenched. Charlie, as had been arranged, was to go away for six months, and communicate neither with her nor Maud; and during those six months Lucia had deliberately cut herself off from Maud also. Maud could do nothing for her; it was not Maud she wanted. By the arrangement that had been made, Charlie would choose between them—that was what it amounted to. It was, therefore, little wonder that in the interval Lucia found it impossible to be in correspondence with her friend. Nor could she see her; the room that was always ready for Maud was always empty.
This afternoon, when she came into the hot, familiar restrictedness of the garden, she knew her fate. She had seen in the Morning Post, which Aunt Cathie still took in for the sake of its small paragraphs, that Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lindsay had arrived in town for the remainder of the season. That was quite enough; Maud's letter, which arrived by the second post, could tell her no more than that. So that was settled; it was all over, and for her there would never be anything more than she had now.
And then she knew how she had built upon the hope, even though she had told Maud she knew to which of them Charlie would go; she knew that in her heart she had never accepted that which now she was bound to accept. And therefore hitherto she had looked on this dreadful nightmare of a garden as a hotel garden, from which she would move to go elsewhere. But now it was no hotel garden; such as it was, it was the garden of her home. There was, at least, no other home.
No; that which had been familiar but temporary had to take another aspect. It was permanent. Had it proved that Charlie would join her, she would have gone away, lived the pleasant
