Badger saw her through the diamond-shaped panes of the lodge-window, and muttered:
"Poor thing, she has forgot the gold; but never mind, it will come."
CHAPTER XVII.
HUSBAND AND WIFE.
Lady Hope stood in the middle of the room, breathless. The supreme joy of her husband's presence drove every other feeling from her heart. She forgot her brother, her step-child, everything, in the one thought that he was near her. But, was it certain that he would come? How many months, nay, years, had passed since he had entered that room, once so dear to him that no other apartment in that spacious mansion seemed pleasant? She had allowed nothing to be changed since those days. Year by year those silken hangings and crimson cushions had lost their brightness and grown threadbare; but he had pressed those cushions and been shaded by the curtains, and that gave them a brightness and glory to her which no stuffs of India or cloth of gold could replace.
She knew that he was offended, and doubted. But would he come? His step grew slow; he paused. Would he retreat at last, and leave her there, in an agony of disappointment?
No—after a moment's hesitation, the steps advanced. The very certainty of his approach suffocated her. She had not deemed herself so weak. All the strength left her frame.
She sank down upon a couch near the window. The moonlight fell over her like a veil of silver tissue, and through it she looked like the Rachael Closs of New York.
Lord Hope tore away the silvery veil with his presence, for the shadow of his tall person fell across it, throwing the woman back into darkness.
But the light which he took from her slanted across his face, and softened it back to youth. Rachael reached forth her arms.