They walked towards the house, and as they approached it the song ended. Had that man been afflicted with heart disease he would assuredly have dropped down dead on the threshold, for a mist was before his eyes and his heart was beating as if it would burst.
“This way,” said Payne, ushering his guest into the empty sitting-room. “I’ll tell the wife you’re here,” and, closing the door, he left him alone.
Alone? Payne, while he stood holding the door open, could not see the piano at the far end of the room, and now as he closed it, the graceful figure of a lady, who had apparently been occupied in looking through a pile of music in the corner, rose to greet the new arrival. His back was to the light as she first saw him.
“Have you ridden far to-day?” she began, in a pleasant conversational voice. Then with a faint, gasping cry as if she had been stabbed, she reeled back and leaned against the piano, her face ashy white, and trembling in every limb.
“Arthur!”
“Lilian!”
He made three steps towards her, and stopped short. No, he dared not even touch her. She belonged to another, now. She was the wife of his host and friend, the man whose life he had just saved. Why had he, of all others, been sent there only just in time to rescue that life, and then have been brought on to this house to witness what the saving of that life involved? What power of evil had sent him to this fiery torment—this pang which was worse than hell—as he stood there looking upon the woman who possessed the love of his whole nature, and whose pure-souled, beautiful face had ever been before his mental gaze, night and day, during three years and a half of lonely wanderings? What had he done to deserve this torture? Like a lightning flash these reflections pierced through his brain as he stood gazing, with a terrible agonised stare, upon the delicate beauty of face and form which had taken all the sunshine and gladness out of his existence, and now stood before him owned by another, and that other the man whose life he had just saved.
Something in his look froze her where she stood. Was she thinking much the same as himself? With hands clasped tightly before her, and eyes fixed upon his with a despairing fear, she whispered hoarsely:
“I thought I should never see you again. I thought—Oh, God—I thought—that you were—dead!”
The last ray of the sinking son shot from over the western hills, entering the window and flooding with a golden and then a ruddy halo the pale, anguish-stricken face and the wealth of dusky hair. And there they stood, those two who had been parted three long weary years and twice that number of months. There they stood—suddenly thrown together, as it were, by the hand of Fate—facing each other, yet speechless. Three years and a half of parting, and now to meet again—thus.