Page:A Venetian June (1896).pdf/256

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should always precede such an indulgence. That, in itself, was a very marked concession to feeling.

There remained to Kenwick one consolation besides that of having behaved handsomely to Daymond: he had left a fragrant, if not a lasting, memory behind him. Would she not be pleased, would she not be touched, when, presently, his roses were brought to her? She was to find them when she came up from breakfast; his directions to the porter on that head had been very explicit. And would not the roses, beautiful in themselves, gain a telling significance, by reason of the message they bore? On the reverse side of his card he had written, in his small, clear hand, the words:

"All June I bound the rose in sheaves."

The line seemed to him extremely well chosen; it could hardly fail to stimulate the imagination. He, himself, felt its haunting quality, and he had repeated