She turned. It was so strangely like that former occasion that she had a curious bewildered feeling of having passed through the same before; and perhaps she had, in her dreams. Scarcely conscious, she walked towards the fire.
‘Can you forgive me?’ said the same husky voice.
She raised her eyes to his face. ‘Oh, Percy!’—but she could say no more, cut short by rising sobs; and she could only hide her face, and burst into tears.
He was perfectly overwhelmed. ‘Theodora, dearest! do not! I have been too hasty,’ he exclaimed, almost beside himself with distress, and calling her by every affectionate name.
‘Never mind! It is only because I have become such a poor creature!’ said she, looking up with a smile, lost the next moment in the uncontrollable weeping.
‘It is my fault!—my want of consideration! I will go—I will call Mrs. Martindale.’
‘No, no, don’t, don’t go!’ said Theodora, eagerly—her tears driven back. ‘It was only that I am so foolish now.’
‘It was very wrong to be so abrupt—’
‘No! Oh! it was the relief!’ said Theodora, throwing off her shawl, as if to free herself from oppression. Percy took it from her, placed her in the arm-chair, and rendered her all the little attentions in his power with a sort of trembling eagerness, still silent; for she was very much exhausted,—not so much from present agitation as from the previous strain on mind and body.
It seemed to give a softness and tenderness to their reunion, such as there never had been between them before, as she leant back on the cushions he placed for her, and gazed up in his face as he stood by her, while she rested, as if unwilling to disturb the peace and tranquillity.