“God bless my darling!” leaped from heart to lip in a whisper too low for even my own ears to hear. And I believed—and left that door in the belief—that I was willing it should be in His way, not mine, so long as it was a blessing in very truth.
But once on the verandah below, whither I went for a cooling draught of the keen night air, I stopped short in my even pacing as though caught by a detaining hand.
A thought had come to me. He had two wills in his hand, yet he had destroyed neither though the flames were leaping and beckoning on the hearth-stone at his feet. Let him say this or let him say that, the ordeal was not over. Under these circumstances dare I do as he suggested and show my heart to Orpha?
Suppose he changed his mind again!
The mere suggestion of such a possibility was so unsettling that it kept me below in an unquiet mood for hours. I walked the court, and when Haines came to put out the lights, paced the library-floor till I was exhausted. The house was still and well nigh dark when I finally went upstairs, and after a little further wandering through the halls entered my own room.
Three o’clock! and as wide awake as ever. Throwing myself into the Morris chair which had been given me for my comfort, I shut my eyes in the hope of becoming drowsy and was just feeling a lessening of the tense activity which was keeping my brain in a whirl when there came a quick knock at my door followed by the hurried word:
“Mr. Bartholomew is worse, come quickly.”
I was on my feet in an instant, my heart cold in my breast but every sense alert. Had I feared such a summons? Had some premonition of sudden disaster been the cause of the intolerable restlessness which had kept my feet moving in the rooms below?
Useless to wonder; the sounds of hurrying steps all over the house warned me to hasten also. Rushing from my room I encountered Wealthy awaiting me at the turn of the hall. She was shaking from head to foot and her voice broke as she said: