As the old lady disappeared, Mrs. Orme shuddered, and muttered with clenched teeth:
"All have a Gethsemane sooner or later, and mine has overtaken me before I am quite ready. God grant me some strengthening angel!"
She sank back into the arm chair, and drew the oval gilt table before her as a barrier, while some inexplicable, intuitive impulse prompted her to draw from her bosom a locket containing Regina's miniature. Touching a spring, she looked at the childish features so singularly like those she had seen the previous evening, and when Mrs. Waul returned and seated herself at the end of the room, the spring snapped, the locket lay in one hand, the minister's card in the other.
Mrs. Orme heard the sound on the stairs and along the hall—the well-remembered step. Amid the tramp of a hundred she could have singled it out, so often in bygone years had she crouched under the lilacs that overhung the gate, listening for its rapid approach, waiting to throw herself into the arms that would clasp her so fondly; to-day that unaltered step smote her ears like an echo from the tomb, and for an instant her heart stood still, and she shut her eyes; but the door swung back, and Mr. Laurance stood upon the threshold. As he advanced, she rose, and when he stood before her with outstretched hand, she ignored it, merely rested her palm on the table between them; and glancing at the card in her fingers said:
"Mr. Laurance, I believe, introduced by the American minister. A countryman of mine, he writes. As such I am pleased to see you, sir, for when abroad the mere name of American is an open sesame to American sympathy and hospitality. Pray be seated, Mr. Laurance. Pardon me, not that stiff-backed ancient contrivance of torture, which must have been invented by Eymeric. You will find that green velvet Voltaire, like its namesake, far more easy, affording ample latitude."
The sweet voice rung its silver chimes as clearly as when she trod the stage, and no shadow of the past cast its dusky wing over her proud, pale face, while she gracefully waved him to a seat, and resumed her own.
"If Madame Orme, so recently from home, yields readily to the talismanic spell of 'American' she can perhaps imagine the fascination it exerts over one who for many years has roamed far from his roof-tree and his hearthstone; but who never more proudly exulted in his nationality than last night, when as Queen of Tragedy, Madame lent new lustre to the land that claims the honour of being her birthplace."
"Thanks. Then I may infer you paid me the tribute of your presence last evening?"
They looked across the table, into each other's eyes,—hers radiant with a dangerous steely glitter, his eloquent with the intense admiration which kindled on the previous evening, now glowed more fervently from the contemplation of a beauty that to-day appeared tea-fold more irresistible. The question slightly disconcerted him.
"I had the honour of accompanying our minister, and sharing his box."