It is now quite half an hour past the time appointed by Desmond in his letter. Monica, rising impetuously, moves towards the door.
"Is the writing at an end?" Miss Penelope's voice comes to her from the other end of the room, with a plaintive ring in it. It casts despair upon the hopes that [are] kindling afresh within her bosom. "Dear, dear! I'm so glad! Monica, come to me, and help me with this wool. It has got so entangled that only bright eyes like yours," with a loving smile, "can rescue it from its hopeless state."
Poor Monica! after one passionate inclination to rebel, her courage fails her, and she gives in, and taking the tangled skein of wool (that reminds her in a vague, sorrowful fashion of her own [hapless] love story) between her slender fingers, bends over it.
Her cheeks are aflame. Her eyes are miserable but tearless. It all seems too cruel. There sits Aunt Priscilla at the davenport, with a smile of triumph on her lips, as she finds her accounts right to a halfpenny. Here sits Aunt Penelope fanning herself with soft complacency, because the day, though of September, is sultry as of hot July. And all this time Brian is walking impatiently to and fro upon the tiny beach, thinking her cold, unloving, indifferent, watching with straining, reproachful eyes the path along which she ought to come.
This last thought is just too much. A great fire kindles in her beautiful eyes; the spirit of defiance seizes on her gentle breast; her lips quiver; her breath comes from between them with a panting haste. "Yes! she will go to him, she will!" She rises to her feet.
Just at that moment the door is flung wide open, and Desmond enters the room.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
How the Misses Blake receive the nephew of their sworn foe—How Monica at all hazards proclaims her truth—And how Miss Priscilla sees something that upsets her and the belief of years.
One moment of coma ensues. It is an awful moment, in which nobody seems even to breathe. The two Misses Blake turn into a rigidity that might mean stone; the young man pauses irresolutely, yet with a sternness about his lips that bespeaks a settled purpose not to be laid aside for any reason, and that adds some years to his age.