CHAPTER XII.
"Love, like a June rose, Buds and sweetly blows-- But tears its leaves disclose, And among thorns it grows." The professor had been standing inside the curtain for a full minute before Perpetua had seen him.

Spell-bound he had stood there, gazing at the girl as if bewitched.

Up to this he had seen her only in black--black always--severe, cold--but _now_! It is to him as though he had seen her for the first time.

The graceful curves of her neck, her snowy arms, the dead white of the gown against the whiter glory of the soft bosom, the large, dark eyes so full of feeling, the little dainty head! Are they _all_ new--or some sweet, fresher memory of a picture well beloved?
Then he had seen his brother!--Hastings--the disgrace, the _roue_ ...

and bending over _her_!...