The next instant he was alone with the choir of the elements, the great gathering company of the stars, and his own tumultuous thoughts.
Ellinor was back in the little room that had held her as child and widow; that now received her, a bride trembling on the verge of joy.
No one had expected the lady of Bindon to go back to this humble nest. There was a great belighted and beflowered apartment awaiting her in state, somewhere in the house; whereas here, shutters were barred and all was in darkness, spiced of lavender and dried roses. She laid down the lamp she had culled from a wall on her secret way, and set about her preparations with the haste that will not stay to think.
Off with the grey satin robes that she had trailed across the dew-sprent grass and the brown wood paths; down with the curls and twists and the high-jewelled combs wherewith Madam Tutterville had so lovingly adorned her bridal head.... All her glorious hair in one loose unbound coil; thus——! Now, from the recesses of yonder press the white loose long-folded wrapper which, in her mourning flight, she had deemed unsuitable for the small trunk of the working woman. And now, over all, the great grey cloak once more!
This done, she lifted the lamp again and held it while she stood a second before the mirror. Yes! so must she have looked, upon that night of false joy—that night of delusions and terrors. But truly, not with that fire of expectancy in her eye, those chasing blushes and pallors on her cheeks, that flock of rosy smiles that no effort of will could keep away for long!
Now was the moment come to unbar the shutters and set the casement wide, to let in the breath of the late honeysuckle, the exotic fragrances of poor Master Simon’s ravaged garden—to let out, across the wide spaces, the summoning beams of her lamp!
She held it aloft a moment, then lit a rushlight: for in not one detail must she omit anything of that Lammas-night’s dream-scene to be re-enacted, this time with awakened senses, to the assuring of their great comfort. And then, between the inner and the outer rooms she stood, bare-footed, waiting, listening—the one anguished moment of that happy day!
And yet not long had she to wait. With incredible speed came the sounds for which her heart yearned so fiercely; light, unfaltering steps, approaching along the echoing stone passage; the door of the outer room opening, it seemed, at the same instant ... and David stood before her, out of the darkness! David, with shining eyes, the heavy hair tossed back from his forehead, with the pungent breath of the night woods hanging about his garments.
“Come in, David,” said she and strove to make her tones as placid in her tremulous expectancy as, on that other night, they had been in her desperate courage.
She stepped back into the inner room as she spoke, and he followed. Ah, here the parallel ceased! Followed her, not with the dilated gaze of the sleep-walker, unknowing, unconscious; but as the strong man crosses the threshold of his beloved’s chamber, in passionate reverent realisation.