And this was true. The summons which Milly had received was of the briefest and least intelligible character. It was in a handwriting that she knew well, and although it was unsigned she was tremulously ready and eager to obey it at once. "Come back to your old lodgings at Hampstead," the writer said. "Do not stay any longer at Birchmead: I want you in London." And that was almost all.
Milly hovered all day long between alternations of wild hope and wild despair. If she had been accustomed to self-analysis, she herself might have been surprised to see how widely her present moods differed from those which had dominated her when she lived at Maple Cottage. She was then a vain, self-seeking little damsel, affectionate and uncorrupted, with an empty head, indeed, but an innocent heart. Now both self-seeking and vanity were being scourged out of her by force of the love which she had learnt to feel. She was little changed in manner, and an observer might have said that she was as childishly pleased as ever with a new gaud or a pretty toy; but behind the self-sufficiency of her demeanor, and the frivolity of her tastes, there was something new—something more real and living than mere self-indulgence and conceit. The faculty of giving and spending herself for others had sprung into being with the first love she had known. For the man with whom she had gone away from Lettice's house she was willing to lay down her life if he would but accept the gift. And when he seemed loath to accept it, Milly became conscious of a heart-sick shame and pain which had already often brought tears that were not unworthy to her pretty childish eyes. The strength of her own feelings frightened her sometimes: she did not know how to resist the surging tide of passion and longing and regret that rose and fell within her breast, as uncontrollable by her weak will as the waves by the Danish king of history. Poor Milly's soul had been born within her, as a woman's soul is often born through love, and the acquisition cost her nothing but pain as yet, although it might ultimately lead her to a higher life.
She arrived at the lodgings in Hampstead which had formerly been hers, about five o'clock in the afternoon. The landlady received her cordially, saying that "the gentleman had bespoke the rooms," and Milly was taken at once into the sitting-room, which looked west, and was lighted by a flood of radiance from the setting sun. Milly sank down on a sofa, in hopeless fatigue.
"Did he say that he would be home to-night?" she asked of the landlady.
"No, Mrs. Beadon, he didn't; but he said that he was very busy in the city and would write or send if he couldn't come himself."
"How was he looking?"
"Oh, very well, but a bit worried, I thought," said Mrs. Capper. "Now let me take your things, ma'am, and then I'll bring up the tea: you don't look as if your stay in the country had done you much good after all."
"Oh, I'm very well," said Milly, unfastening her mantle and coloring with nervousness under the woman's sharp eye. "I daresay Mr. Beadon will come to-morrow, if he doesn't come to-night."
But nobody came, although she sat up watching and waiting for many hours after Mrs. Capper had betaken herself to her bed. What did this silence and absence mean? Her heart contracted with a curious dread. She loved, but she had never believed herself capable of retaining love.
About eleven o'clock next day, she was informed that a gentleman wanted to speak to her. "A young-looking, fair gentleman, like a clerk," said Mrs. Capper. "Shall I show him up? It's from your good 'usband, most likely, I should think."