"Perhaps I may set him up in business myself," he wrote. "At all
events, dear Maude, you need not dim the brightness of your eyes by
tears, for all will yet be well. Next June shall see you a bride,
unless your intended husband refuse my offer, in which case I may
divine something better."
"Noble man," was Maude's exclamation, as she finished reading the
letter, and if at that moment the two cousins rose up in contrast
before her mind, who can blame her for awarding the preference to
him who had penned those lines, and who thus kindly strove to remove
from her pathway every obstacle to her happiness.
James De Vere was indeed a noble-hearted man. Generous, kind, and
self-denying, he found his chief pleasure in doing others good, and
he had written both to Maude and J.C. just as the great kindness of
his heart had prompted him to write. He did not then know that he
loved Maude Remington, for he had never fully analyzed the nature of
his feelings toward her. He knew he admired her very much, and when
he wrote the note J.C. withheld he said to himself, "If she answers
this, I shall write again--and again, and maybe"--he did not exactly
know what lay beyond the "maybe," so he added, "we shall be very
good friends."
But the note was not answered, and when his cousin's letter came,
telling him of the engagement, a sharp, quick pang shot through his
heart, eliciting from him a faint outcry, which caused his mother,
who was present, to ask what was the matter.
"Only a sudden pain," he answered, laying his hand upon his side.
"Pleurisy, perhaps," the practical mother rejoined, and supposing
she was right he placed the letter in his pocket and went out into
the open air. It had grown uncomfortably warm, he thought, while the
noise of the falling fountain in the garden made his head ache as it
had never ached before; and returning to the house he sought his
pleasant library. But not a volume in all those crowded shelves had
power to interest him then, and with a strange disquiet he wandered
from room to room, until at last, as the sun went down, he laid his
throbbing temples upon his pillow, and in his feverish dreams saw
again the dark-eyed Maude sitting on her mother's grave, her face
upturned to him, and on her lip the smile that formed her greatest
beauty.
The next morning the headache was gone, and with a steady hand he
wrote to his cousin and Maude congratulations which he believed
sincere. That J.C. was not worthy of the maiden he greatly feared,
and he resolved to have a care of the young man, and try to make him
what Maude's husband ought to be, and when he heard of her
misfortune he stepped forward with his generous offer, which J.C.
instantly refused.