At the time appointed the steamer reached Greenock, she was there to meet it, and David Campbell was at the gangway watching for her. There was a crowd of incomers and outgoers, and David was glad of it, for Theodora with her child reached their stateroom without notice from any one. There she found her father and mother, and the joy and wonder of that meeting may well be left to the imagination.
It had been decided, that until David found out whether any of the passengers were sitters in Dr. Robertson's church, or people from any circumstance likely to know Theodora, she should remain in seclusion; but in a couple of days, David had clearly established the safety of her appearance; and after that assurance, she was constantly on deck with the rest of the party. All the way across the Atlantic they had a blue sky, a blue sea, sunshine, and good company; and one morning they were awakened by some one calling "Land! Land in sight!" and hastening on deck they stood together watching their approach to the low-lying shores of that New World which held for them the promise of a happy home and a prosperous future.
CHAPTER XI
CHRISTINA AND ISABEL
Just about the time Theodora's party were sitting down to a happy dinner in the Astor House, New York, Robert reached his home in Glasgow. He had confidently expected to see his wife waiting for him at Crewe Junction, and been disappointed and angry at her failure to do so. "Women are all alike," he muttered to himself, "they never keep an appointment, and they never catch a train." He wandered round the waiting-rooms looking for her, and so missed his own train, and had to wait two hours at one of the most depressing stations in England. For though the traffic is immense there, the stony, prison-like order, the silent, hurrying passengers, and the despondent-looking porters, fill the heart with a restless passion to escape from the place. Without analyzing this feeling, Robert was conscious of it, and it intensified the annoyance of his detention.
All the way to Glasgow he pondered on the singular circumstance of Theodora's failure to obey the telegram he had sent her. She had always been so prompt and glad to meet him, there must have been some mistake made in the message. He tried to remember its exact words, but could not, and as he neared his own city a certain fear assailed him. He began to wonder if his wife or child was sick—or if any accident had happened on their journey from Bradford to Crewe. But this solution he quickly dismissed as incredible. Theodora would have managed under any circumstances to send him word. She would not have kept him waiting and wondering. It was utterly unlike her. At length the anxious journey was over, but in hurrying from the train to his carriage, he noticed that the coachman spoke in an easy, nonchalant way, and that there was no sign about him of anything unusual or unhappy. When he reached Traquair House his mother and Isabel met him at the door, and Jepson unlocked his apartments, and began to turn on the light in the parlors.
"We shall have dinner in twenty minutes, Robert," said Mrs. Campbell, and Jepson added:
"Your rooms upstairs are prepared for you, sir."
No one had named Theodora, and he had not done so either. Why? He could not tell "why"; for her name beat at his lips, and inquiry about her was the great demand of his nature. He looked into her rooms, and the sense of emptiness and desertion about them was like a blow. David's cot had been removed, he saw that at once, and felt angry about it. And the perfect order of things shocked something in his feelings never before recognized. He missed sorely those pretty bits of disorder, that seemed to him now almost a part of his wife and child—the bow of ribbon, the little shawl or scarf over a chair-back, the small book of daily texts, and the thin parchment copy of "The Imitation" on her table; David's puzzle on the window seat, or his tiny handkerchief on the floor beside it.