Mrs. Dennison was very restless, changing her position every moment, and starting up if the least sound reached her from the woods. As time wore on, she seemed to listen till the very breath upon her lips paused. The birds, that, as I have said before, were very tame on the ground, made her restive with their singing. She hated them, I am sure, for the sweet noise that prevented her hearing his footsteps.
I softly took out my watch and counted the time. He had not been absent more than fifteen minutes, when she sprang up, clenching both hands as if about to strike some one, and began to prowl up and down the path like a leopardess searching for her cubs. Now and then her voice broke through the foliage, and I could see her wringing her hands, or stamping her feet upon the dead leaves.
At last a footstep sounded from the woods; it was a man's step coming rapidly through the leaves. It had a hard sound, and I felt sure that the man was desperate. She evidently thought otherwise. Her arms fell helplessly down, and she crept back to the rock, white and still, but with her face turned away as if she would not let him see how anxious she was.
He came up to the rock from the woods, crossed the footpath with a single stride, and stood before her so stern, so bitterly incensed, that she shrunk away from his first glance, yet a flash of irresistible joy shot to the eyes with which she eagerly questioned him.
"Well!"
The lips from which this word came were almost smiling. Nature was strong in the woman, and, spite of her selfishness, she exulted over the ruin of her own plans.
"Well!" was the bitter response; "I have humiliated myself like a hound—proposed and am rejected."
The woman sprang toward him with both hands extended; but he stepped back, and she clasped them in an outgush of joy.
"Then it is over! Oh, heavens, how glad I am! this hour has been such torture! What would a whole life be? I should go mad. Let the property go—sweep the whole thing aside! How many poor people in the world are happy! In poverty or out of it, you and I will be all in all to each other!"
She was "pure womanly" then, notwithstanding her crafty nature and bad heart; there was something in her abandonment that made my blood thrill.