"It is done! I have told her I love her!
• • • • •
"Some power grown tyrannous holding me fast,
Blotting alike the Future and Past."
L. MORRIS.
AFTER the evening call, witnessed by Mrs. Kennedy, Cyril did not go again for three whole days. He really was unable, being prevented by a close run of engagements: but none the less he was much gratified with his own self-control in staying away.
Emmie's little face haunted him incessantly, and after three days, he could wait no longer. The Dulveriford world was a wilderness without her smile. Friends came to lunch, and more friends were expected to afternoon tea; and Sybella always liked to air her nephew's manners on these occasions. But Cyril, pleading business, slipped away soon after three o'clock.
"Of course it is business," he told himself laughingly. "Much more business than sitting indoors to talk chit-chat with a lot of old maids. The most important business of life, perhaps."
He had not so plainly allowed the possibility to himself before; but under the pull of three days' starvation of Emmie, it sprang up and took clear shape.
Nobody was in the drawing-room of the red house when he entered, and the fire had sunk into a mere heap of red embers—an unusual state of things there at four o'clock. Cyril wondered what could have happened to banish the three. They walked earlier, as a rule, these wintry days; and engagements out to tea were rare.
Cyril endeavoured to warm his hands before the dull coals, and considered whether he might count himself enough at home to make up the fire, but did not do it. Then he strolled about, criticised one or two of the old pictures, and finally was rewarded by Emmie's appearance.
She did not see him at first. Her eyes were downcast, the dark lashes almost resting on the rounded cheeks, and as she came slowly in with a lagging step, she said, "O dear me!" half aloud.
"How do you do?" asked Cyril.
Emmie's movement might have been the result of an electric shock, and the dark eyes opened wide.