"There!" she said, "he's coming. Peter, I've moved your place. Osmond will sit opposite me."
"Osmond!" Peter almost shouted it.
"Yes," said grannie, in what seemed pride. "I thought Osmond would be here."
Osmond came in, a workman in his blouse, fresh from cold water and the night's stern counseling. Rose, hearing his step, could not, for a minute, look at him, because he had once forbidden it. The commonplace room, with the morning light in it, swam before her. After he had spoken to grannie, he walked up to her and offered his hand. Then their eyes met. Hers were full of tears, and through their blur, even, his face looked stern and beautiful.
"I wanted to see you," Osmond said; and she answered, feeling his kindness as from some dim distance,—
"To say good-by?"
"No, not to say good-by."
Then they sat down, and there was no constraint, but a good deal of talking; and, strangely, it was Osmond who led it. He did not touch upon things of wider interest than his own garden ground, where he was at home. He had pleasant chronicles of the work to give grannie, and MacLeod took a genial interest. Only Peter sat, wide-eyed at the turn things were taking, and Rose grew paler and left her plate untouched. She did not know whether it was joy that moved her, or grief at parting with him. Only the morning seemed like no other morning. When they rose from the table, Osmond turned at once to MacLeod.
"May I see you for a minute or two?" he asked. "We'll go into the west room, grannie."
While Peter started forward, as if to help or hinder as the case might be when he understood it, Osmond had led the way, still with the air of being master of the house, and Rose stood with downcast eyes, as if miserably conscious that the interview would concern her. Inside the west room, cool in the morning, and with a restful bareness about it, a retreat where people went to sleep or read, Osmond turned at once to the man whom, at that moment, he delighted in as a worthy foe. Osmond had never known before the keen, salt taste of victory. All his triumphs up to this time had been as slow as the growth of a tree that recovers itself after lopped branches. Now he felt the anticipation of combat.