“Ha,” said the old man, wonderingly, “The Lochore arms.”
Sir David turned the letter in his hand.
“From your sister?” asked the simpler, with amazed emphasis.
“Once I called her so,” answered the astronomer, with an effort that told of his inner repugnance.
As one wakes from a fevered dream Ellinor awoke from her brief madness. Her father’s placid tones, the everyday obvious explanation fell upon her heart like drops of cold water. But the reaction was scarcely one of relief. How was it possible that she, Ellinor Marvel, the woman of many experiences, of the cool brain and the strong heart, should have yielded to this degrading folly, this futile jealousy? What had she done! She shivered as a rapid sequence of thought forced its logic upon her unwilling mind. She had feared that the touch of some woman out of his past should reach David now, at the very moment when a lover’s heart was opening to her in his bosom. Behold! she had herself delivered him over to the one woman of all others she had most reason to dread—the woman who, out of her own outrage upon him had acquired the most influence over his life. It seemed to Ellinor as if she herself who had so laboured to call him to the present and lure him with hopes of a brighter future, had now handed him back to the slavery of the past.
The seal cracked under his fingers.
“Ah, no,” she cried, now springing forward on the new impulse. “No, no, David, do not read it! Send it back, like the others!”
He flung on her a single glance.
“It is too late,” he said, “the seal is broken.”
“Ah, me,” cried Ellinor. “And we were so happy!”