Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/271

 "Ah, the soup! I had forgotten it," whispered Sister Gabrielle innocently. "Wait here till I bring you the basket and the can."

She was gone, and Margaret was left alone on the threshold of the small airy room. It was now nearly dark; but the fading light from the window showed the narrow white bed. Margaret could dimly discern a face among the pillows. The regular breathing showed that the patient was asleep. The girl shivered with a new and acute pain, and yielding to a desire whose force she had no strength to combat, she stole noiselessly across the threshold, and by slow degrees reached the bedside. She stood looking down at the pale handsome face lying there in the gray twilight. So quietly had she moved that the watcher, drowsing in the easy-chair in the shadow of the door, was not aware of her presence till with a low sigh and a sudden raising of her hands to her heart Margaret bent her fair proud head and touched the sleeper's forehead with her lips.

Robert Feuardent had been kissed for a second time as he slept; but the light caress of the maiden lips which laid their first kiss upon his brow only soothed him to a deeper, happier slumber. Like a rosy shadow, Margaret stole from that dim room and flew down the corridor and out into the streets, her basket, the