Still their glasses remained suspended in mid air. The little garden gate had opened and closed with a click; there were footsteps upon the flinty walk.
"It's some one coming here!" John cried hoarsely. "Why can't they keep away? It's two years ago this week since I brought her up the drive and you met us at the front door. Two years ago, Stephen! Who can it be?"
They heard the front door open, they heard Jenning's voice raised in unusual and indignant protest. Then their own door was suddenly flung wide, and a miracle happened. John's glass slipped from his fingers, and the wine streamed out across the carpet. He shrank back, gripping the tablecloth. Stephen turned his head, and sat as if turned to stone.
"John!"
She was coming toward him exactly as he had dreamed of her so many times, her hands outstretched, her lips quivering, with that sweet look in her face which had dwelt there once for a few days—just a few days of her life.
"John," she faltered, "it isn't the car this time—it is I who have broken down! I cannot go on. I have no pride left. I have come to you. Will you help me?"
He found himself upon his feet. Stephen, too, had risen. She stood between the two men, and glanced from one to the other. Then she looked more closely into John's face, peering forward with a little start of pain, and her eyes were filled with tears.
"John," she cried, "forgive me! You were so cruel that morning, and you seemed to understand so little. Don't you really understand, even now? Have you ever known the truth, I wonder?"
"The truth!" he echoed hoarsely. "Don't we all know that? Don't we all know that he is to give you your rights, that you are coming—"
"Stop!" she ordered him.