Then she heard voices asking and answering questions, and among them the landlord’s suave tones, begging some one—the travelers, presumably—to enter and rest themselves while the horses were fed.
Doris listened in an absent kind of fashion, in which the noises and voices came to her like those in a dream, until, suddenly looking up, she saw the moon had risen above the tree tops, and she turned to go back to the arbor in which Lady Despard was doubtless sleeping the sleep of the just. As she did so, she heard a slow step at her side, and glancing in its direction, saw a tall figure coming toward her with a slow and listless step. She was drawing back into the shadow of the shrubs to let him pass without seeing her, when suddenly the moon smiled from behind a cloud, and poured its light full on his face, and she saw that it was Lord Cecil Neville!
Yes, it was his face, but how altered! Pale and haggard it looked, as if as many years as minutes had passed over it since she saw it last in all its bright, fresh youthfulness, and it was the shock caused by this change in the beloved face, as much as the sudden appearance which kept her rooted to the spot.
She could not have moved if her life had depended on it, and he was almost upon her before he noticed her. Then, raising his hat, he murmured:
“Pardon, senorita,” and was going on, when, looking more closely at her, he uttered an exclamation, and stood like herself, stock-still.
For a space in which one could count twenty, these two stood looking into each other’s eyes speechless, then he said:
“Doris!” and stretching out his arms, made a step toward her.
For a second the desire to sink upon his breast was terrible, but she fought against it and shrank back.
The color which had rushed to his face as he spoke her name died away at her gesture of repudiation, and letting his arms drop to his side, he said in a constrained voice:
“Miss Marlowe! Am I dreaming? Doris, is it you?”