There was one moment of ecstatic joy, then suddenly Una drew back; and with a gesture of alarm, pointed to the looking-glass. Jack raised his head, and with a sudden cry drew her nearer to him as if to protect her.
Reflected in the glass was the thin figure of Stephen Davenant, looking rather like a ghost than a man—silent, motionless, with pallid face, and set, rigid eyes.
CHAPTER XXVII.
White and haggard, Stephen stood in shadow-way, his eyes fixed on Jack and Una with an expression of mingled astonishment and rage beyond all description.
Jack was too astonished by what seemed as much an apparition as a reality, to withdraw his arm from round Una’s waist, and it was she who first recovered self-possession enough to cross over to Mrs. Davenant and wake her.
Her movement seemed to recall Stephen to a sense of the situation, and in a moment he rose and coped with it.
Another man, a weaker man, coming thus suddenly upon what looked like the wreck of all his deeply-laid plans, upon seeing the girl, whom it was all-important he should secure for himself, in the arms of the man he hated and feared most in the world, would have given vent to his wrath and disappointment. But not so Stephen. By a vast effort, he suppressed the evil glance in his eyes, forced a smile to his compressed lips, and came across the room with outstretched hand and an expression of warmest and most affectionate greeting.
“My dear Jack!” he exclaimed, in his soft tones, almost rough in their warmth and geniality. “Now, this is a pleasant surprise. How do you do? how do you do?”
But almost before Jack knew it, Stephen had seized him by the hand, and was swinging it convulsively, smiling so that all his teeth glittered and shone in the candle-light.