"Will you tell him, I pray you," she added, "that Monsieur Legros from Paris desires speech with him."
Legros dismissed the clerk—who was eager enough to get away—by bestowing a shilling upon him, and after that he and his daughter followed the serving-man through the hall into a small withdrawing room where they were bidden to wait.
A few moments of suspense—terrible alike to the girl and to the father—then a firm tread on the flagged floor outside; a step that to Rose Marie's supersensitive ear sounded strangely, almost weirdly familiar.
The next moment Michael Kestyon had entered the room.
"You have come to speak with me, good M. Legros—" he said even as he entered. Then he caught sight of Rose Marie and the words died on his lips.
They looked at one another—these two who once had been all in all one to the other—parted now by the shadow of that unforgettable wrong.
Instinctively—with eye fixed to eye—each asked the other the mute question: "Didst suffer as I did?" and in the heart of each—of the defiant adventurer, and the unsophisticated girl—there rose the wild, mad thrill, the triumphant, exulting hosanna, at sight of the lines of sorrow, so unmistakable, so eloquent on the face so dearly loved.
Rose Marie saw at once how much Michael had altered—that tender, motherly instinct inseparable from perfect womanhood told her even more than that which the sunken eyes and the drawn look in the face so pathetically expressed.
Yet outwardly he had changed but little; the step—as he rapidly crossed the room—had been as firm, as elastic as of old; he still carried his head high, and his manner—as of yore—was easy and gracious. When he had first entered, there was even an eager, joyful expression in his face. He did not know, you see, that M. Legros' visit to him was the result of a mistake, the freak of a mischievous clerk. He really thought that the good tailor had come here to see him, Michael, and the news had brought almost joy to his heart and had accelerated his footsteps as he flew down to greet his visitor.
No, the change was in none of these outward signs. It was the spirit in him which had changed. The dark eyes once so full of tenderness had a cold, steely look in them now, which was apparent even through the first pleasurable greeting. The mouth, too, looked set in its lines; the lips, which ere this were ever wont to smile, were now tightly pressed as if for ever controlling a sigh or trying to suppress a cry of pain.