Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/45

Rh Karl smiled.

The next morning, when Margaret came into the sitting-room, Karl, still lying on the lounge, fixed his blue eyes steadily on her face, and said abruptly, "It was then that I so frightened you, to make your cheeks so white, last night. To-day they are red, like red lilies and white lilies in one field," and the blue eyes dwelt on the face till the red lilies had driven all the white lilies away.

Margaret passed her hand impatiently across her cheek. "Oh, I always have color," she said. It did not please her that Wilhelm Reutner's brother should have looked at her in that manner. In a second more, her kindliness of heart triumphed over the slight unworthiness of resentment, and going nearer him, she added, "I was indeed very much frightened about you last night. You seemed very ill, and I was all alone with Mary. I hope you are better; you look better."

Karl's eyes had fallen to the ground. As clearly as if it had been written in letters on Margaret's brow, he had read her first thought, and had been pained.

"Yes, I am better; I am well. It is the home which could cure me," he said, in a tone whose grave simplicity was like Wilhelm's, and had in it an inexpressible charm.

In a moment more, he said, earnestly, "Have you ever found one four leaf of clover?" and, taking out his pocket-book, he turned its leaves over slowly, searching for something.