David's Little Lad by L.T. Meade — Read

During the long and dull winter months which preceded this spring, I had been gradually, yet surely, sinking into a state of indifference about Owen. What had commenced with a sense of poignant pain, had by this time subsided into at most an uncomfortable feeling of dissatisfaction. I knew there was a chord in my heart which when struck could set my whole nature out of tune. But was it not possible, in the airs which life played, she might leave this harsh note unsounded? This possibility took place. During the winter months mother, Owen, and I spent together, I grew accustomed to being near and yet far from him.

Our little home was very bright, a cloud which I had but dimly and unawares partaken in for years, had been removed. Why should not I too enjoy this season of serenity and bliss? Calling pride to my aid, I did enjoy it. I even loved Owen, not in the old way, but with a very considerable affection. I tried to forget all the past, to give him a place in my heart beside mother and David. And in a measure I was successful, in a measure I put out of sight the ugly cloud, the dark disappointment which had shattered my air castle, and made my childhood's hero dust. So by the hearth on winter evenings, I listened to brilliant stories from Owen's lips, stories of his foreign experience, of things he had learned when studying in the German mines; tales of adventure, funny nothings dropped from his lips at these times, pleasant things to listen to, and to think of afterwards, when I lay curled up in my warmly-curtained bed. But though Owen's mind directed his words at these times, imagination supplying the needful colour, a due sense of either absurdity or pathos supplying the necessary point, a musical voice adding intensity to the narrative; yet I think he waited until I had gone to bed, to let his heart speak. Then how near may mother and he have drawn, how truly, in a figurative sense, did the hand of one take the hand of the other, did the soul of one respond to the soul of the other, as they whispered of hopes and fears, of a dark past to be atoned for and wiped away by a bright future! For never, never once during the winter, did Owen's heart speak to my heart; never, until now, to-day -- now, when it leaped up into his eyes, and addressed me with a passionate cry of pain.