There was a call, and they hurried away to join the others. They had forgotten both themselves and each other. It was only afterwards that Florella realised that she had said unusual things, or Guy that he had heard them. But strange to each other they never could be again.
Constancy and Godfrey had thought of each other, and of the effect they were producing on each other, all day long. Nevertheless, they parted as “Strangers yet.”
Part 1, Chapter XI.
“Striving for Dear Existence.”
In the soft interrupted stillness of the summer night Godfrey Waynflete leant out of his window, and lived over again the hours of the day. The country stillness was constantly broken by the whirr of a bat, the twitter of a disturbed sparrow, or by the homely sounds of cattle and poultry in the farm and fields close by. But Godfrey neither heard nor heeded. He was deaf to the sounds within the house, the occasional strain and creak of the old boards and panels, the patter of rats and mice, which constantly disturbed the slumbers of Rawdie, who slept on a mat in his master’s room. His blood was all on fire; sleep was impossible to him. He could think of nothing but that in two days he would meet Constancy again at Ingleby. It did not seem possible to Godfrey that so intense a desire should fail to work its own fulfilment. No one and nothing should stand in the way of this demand of his spirit for the thing it craved. The whole world was widened, transformed, glorified. Constancy—Cosy. How the name suited her! The memories of that old boyish visit started into life, till the old house seemed to thrill with her presence.
“Talk of haunting,” thought Godfrey, laughing to himself. Constancy was the presence that filled Waynflete through and through. There was no room there for any ghosts! Then suddenly, without warning, there fell upon him a doubt, a fear, a presentiment of disappointment, a change of spirit so complete that it was almost as if a sudden change of atmosphere had swept through the room, and chilled him. A moment before his joy had had hardly a misgiving, now he suddenly felt utterly without hope.
He started upright, and pulled the casement to, for the night-air felt all at once chilly. He shook himself together, and began to pull off his coat, when Rawdie sat up in the moonlight, and began to howl as if he thought his last hour had come.
“Confound you, Rawdie, hold your tongue!” cried Godfrey, himself reviving, when the door leading into the next room opened, and Guy stood there, fully dressed.