But, alas! Nell had heard it! She had, half mechanically, shrunk behind the pedestal; she shrank still farther behind it as Drake spoke, and she put up her hand on the cold marble as if for support. For she was trembling in every limb, and a sensation as of approaching death was creeping over her. The terrace and the two figures grew misty and indistinct, the music of the band sounded like a blurred discord in her ears, and the blood rushed through her veins like fire one moment and like ice the next.
She would have rushed out of her hiding place and into the house, but she could not move. Was she going to die? or was this awful, sickening weakness only a warning that she was going to faint? She pressed her forehead against the marble, and the icy coldness of the unsympathetic stone revived her. She found that she could hear every word, though the two had moved to the stone rail.
"It is quite a shock!" said Lady Luce. She put her handkerchief to her lips, her eyes, and then looked up at him with the smile, the confession of weakness, which is one of woman's most irresistible weapons.
"I—I am staying at the Chesneys'—you know the Chesneys? No? There is a small party—some of us came over to-night to this dance—they are old friends of the Maltbys. Drake, I can scarcely believe it is you!"
He stood beside her patiently, and yet impatiently. He was thinking of Nell even at that moment; wondering where she was, how soon he could get away from Lady Luce and find Nell.
"You are staying here?" she asked, meaning at the Maltbys'.
He nodded, thinking it well to leave her misconception uncorrected.
"How strange! Drake, it—it is like Fate!" she murmured; and, indeed, she felt that it was.
"Like Fate?" he asked.
"Yes—that—that we should meet here, in this out-of-the way place, so soon. Oh, Drake, if you knew how glad I am!"