Calm and collected as she had been at first, she was trembling now, and her voice died away in sobs. The firelight fell upon her face--upon the face of my lost love!
I also was profoundly agitated.
"Hortense," I said, "do you not know, that he who stood beside your father in his last hour, and he who so loved you years ago, are one and the same? Alas! why did you not tell me these things long since?"
"Did you stand beside my father's deathbed?" she asked brokenly.
"I did."
She clasped her hands over her eyes and shuddered, as if beneath the pressure of a great physical pain.
"O God!" she murmured, "so many years of denial and suffering! so many years of darkness that might have been dispelled by a word!"
We were both silent for a long time. Then I told her all that I remembered of her father; how he came to Saxonholme--how he fell ill--how he died, and was buried. It was a melancholy recital; painful for me to relate--painful for her to hear--and interrupted over and over again by questions and tears, and bursts of unavailing sorrow.
"We will visit his grave to-morrow," I said, when all was told.
She bent her head.