The Finding of Jasper Holt by Grace Livingston Hill

The breath of the roses on her pillow and the fresh ones on the stand near the bed wakened Jean softly in the early morning, and she lay still, thinking joyously that she was to see Jasper once more before she left. She would have some word, some glance to carry with her on the way. She would have all the beautiful day that was past to put with their other experience together and keep, and she would have that good-bye. It was the knowledge that he had promised to see her again that brought the smile to her lips and the eternal hope of youth to her eyes, when she remembered that this was her last day in Hawk Valley, perhaps forever.

There were not many minutes for such happy thoughts. Her trunk was packed, save a few little things, but they must be put in; and the children were already clamoring for her to come downstairs, they could not spare her any longer on this, her last morning.

Before she was entirely ready to go down people began to come to the house to say good-bye and attend her to the station, and when she was finally ready she had gathered quite an escort so that her going through the street seemed quite like a little triumphal procession, a fit continuation of the festivities of the day before.

Eleanor was proud and pleased and weeping all in one, and there was laughing and chatter and banter and many invitations for her to return.

There had been more flowers sent this morning, and boxes of candy and books for her to read on the way. Just before she had left the house Eleanor brought to her more orchids that the Captain had sent, and begged her to wear them just this one last time, but she was already wearing a glorious mass of fresh Golden Sunset roses that she had saved at home the day before for this purpose. Eleanor tried to make her take them off, but Harrington interfered unexpectedly.

"What do you do that for? " he said. "It's all right if she wants to wear them. People will sort of expect it. It's a piece of her triumph of yesterday. It won't do her any harm."

Jean looked up surprised, caught a shifty, uneasy glance in her brother's eye, and read his mean, cringing little soul. He would sacrifice her readily to his worst enemy if it suited his needs, and she had always felt it -- now she knew it. He colored under her glance, and tried to affect an elderly air of petting her, but Jean was not deceived.

The train was twenty minutes late. There was laughter and chatter and a renewal of yesterday's merriment around the station while they waited. Jean was enthroned on a pile of packing cases with her flowers about her like some queen, and her admirers at her feet. But though her eyes searched the landscape in every direction, from her vantage height, she could nowhere see Holt, and when the train at last was sighted, a mere speck down the track, she felt her heart sinking in dismay. He had promised and he had not come! It seemed as though she could not go without that last look from his eyes that she had known would be there for her, the covenant for the lonely future.

She tried to smile at the last and say all the bright things that were expected of her, but she could not keep her eyes away from the road that led to Holt's house. When the train finally pulled out, amid the waving multitude of friends, and the shouting of last messages and fond good-byes, the tears sprang into her eyes unbidden and dimmed the faces of those on the platform into a great blur.

"Well, I'm glad she's safely off," sighed Eleanor, climbing into the car beside the children, "and I must say that man behaved pretty well not to come down to the train. I didn't think he had that much sense!"

But her husband answered not a word. He drove his car with grim silence. He was wishing Holt had come, and wondering if his absence portended evil for himself.

The travellers on the Eastern Express watched with delight the beautiful girl surrounded by her bank of flowers who had come to brighten the monotony of their long trip. They wondered where she was going, and if she had left a lover behind, that she wiped the tears away furtively and kept her head turned, looking out of the window at the landscape, which she could not see for tears.

Captain Wetherill had assumed the care of putting Jean on the train, and had turned over a seat, giving her plenty of room to pile the flowers the other men brought on board, in the empty seat. She seemed like a young queen in her garden, with roses and lilies and violets all about her; but at none of them did she look. Her lips were touching the petals of the golden rose on her breast and her thoughts were with its giver. His fine bearing as he skimmed the ground on his black steed, the touch of his soft, bright hair as she laid the wreath on his brow, the look of homage in his eyes as he raised her hand and led her to her horse, the thrill of his voice when he promised to see her again to say good-bye; and then the leaden fact that he had not come! Over and over she went the round and always came back to that, with the choke in her throat and the tears in her eyes. Excuse after excuse for his not coming were conjured in her mind and rejected; and vague fear for his safety mingled with them too. But the fact remained -- he had not -- and now she would see him no more!

She tried again and again to gather herself together, and finally succeeded in mastering the tears so that there was only a bright suspicion of them in her eyes, but the sense of sadness and something dear, unfinished and now impossible, pervaded her entire thoughts.

Fifty miles from Hawk Valley the train came to a halt at a tiny flag station, and a young man entered, tall, handsome, eager, wearing a dark blue suit and a soft Panama hat -- a perfect gentleman in every detail; a light in his eyes and a smile of welcome on his lips.

Jean did not look up until he was almost beside her seat, and then her heart leaped with a light of welcome in her eyes, when she saw that it was Holt!