And Lettice smiled in answer, but a little sadly, for she saw no happier life before them but one, which must be reached through tortuous courses of perplexity and pain.
The dream of joy had culminated in that brief, impulsive, unconscious transmigration of soul and soul; but with the cessation of the music it dissolved again. The realities of their condition began to crowd upon them as they left the hall. But the disillusion came gradually. They still knew and felt that they were supremely happy; and as they waited for the cab, into which Alan insisted on putting her, she looked at him with a bright and grateful smile.
"I am so glad I saw you. It has been perfect," she said.
He had made her take his arm—more for the sake of closer contact than for any necessity of the crowd—and he pressed it as she spoke.
"It is not quite over yet," he said. "Let me take you home."
"Thank you, no. Not to-day, Alan. See, there is an empty hansom."
He did not gainsay her, but helped her carefully into the cab, and, when she was seated, leaned forward to clasp her hand and speak a parting word. But it was not yet spoken when, with a sharp cry, Lettice started and cast herself in front of him, as though to protect him from a danger which he could not see.
In the confused press of men and women, horses and carriages, which filled the street at this hour from side to side, she had suddenly caught sight of a never-forgotten face—a hungry face, full of malice, full of a wicked exultation, keen for revenge.
Cora Walcott, crossing the road, and halting for a moment at the central landing-place, was gazing at the people as they poured out of St. James' Hall. As Alan helped Lettice into the hansom and bent forward to speak to her, she recognized him at once.
Without a pause she plunged madly into the labyrinth of moving carriages and cabs; and it was then that Lettice saw her, less than three yards away, and apparently in the act of hurling a missile from her uplifted hand.