"I told her I had promised to write to you when she should return to Paris, but I would not do so if she forbade me; and I asked her what I should do. Then she asked me many questions about you, and I told her all she asked; and she told me I might write to you. I said I know you would come when you should receive my letter; and she said she thought so too, and if you did come, I was to give you this."
She unlocked a drawer in a little table which stood beneath the window, and handed a folded slip of paper to Mr. Yeldham. It contained an address in the Rue du Bac, and these words:
"Mrs. Streightley will see Mr. Yeldham. He must inquire for Madame Sidney."
"When did she give you this?" he asked.
"I have told monsieur," replied the girl, smiling; "on the day I wrote to you--two days ago."
"And you have not seen her since?"
No, she had not seen the dear lady since; and she trusted monsieur would see her, and give her back all her happiness. She was paler and sadder now than before she went to Brittany; and she was too good, had too much heart, too great compassion for all who suffered, to be left to any sadness. All the world ought to be good to her, who was good to all the world.
Half an hour later Charles Yeldham had realised a hope, a dream which had mocked and eluded him for long: he was in Katharine Streightley's presence. Striving hard and ineffectually when before the eyes of the woman towards whom he had felt the strongest emotion which life had ever Drought him for the composure which had seemed so easy at a distance, filled with yearning pity for the man who would have given so much to stand where he was standing, and to see what he was looking upon, Charles Yeldham was quite silent for some minutes. He had been ushered into a room in which Katharine was sitting, and she had risen on his entrance, and stood facing him, her hand resting on the back of her chair--resting there calmly, not grasping the chair, with no nervous flutter in the fingers, no need for support implied in the action. With his first glance at her, every impression, every memory he held of her, flashed freshly through Yeldham's mind,--every attitude in which he had seen her, every dress she had worn, every scene in which they had met. The tone of her musical girlish voice sounded in the air around him, while yet this woman he looked upon had not spoken; the graceful form flitted about a flower-decked garden and moved through stately rooms, while yet this woman stood motionless before him. Changed! Yes, she was changed; in the first glance, comprehending all the past, perceiving all the present, he saw the change,--saw that whereas Katharine when he had seen her last looked younger than her years, the woman he now saw looked older than those which had been added. The face was pale, more waxen in its delicate clearness, and there was a sterner line about the beautiful lips. The radiant eyes were radiant still, but their light was steady and serious, and the glorious lustre of youth had passed from the face for ever. What had replaced it, Yeldham thought, that made her so much more beautiful, that lent her a charm, a majestic influence, insurmountable and immortal? He knew afterwards that that which had wrought the change was the purification, the strengthening influence of suffering, the teaching of life and experience, the education of the spirit, which first bruises and then heals, which first chastens even to faintness, almost to despair, and then leads to peace and shelters from self-deception. After his first glance at her, he did not fear for Robert; he felt that he should fulfil the promise which had sounded so rashly confident. Pardon, and the magnanimity of a large heart, looked out of Katharine's beautiful eyes as she bowed her head to her visitor, and said in a low tone, as she indicated a seat to him and resumed her own:
"You are my husband's friend, Mr. Yeldham; and you come to me from him, I think?"
Yeldham's many and troubled speculations had never strayed into the direction of such a reception as this; and the delight with which he heard her words was equalled by his astonishment.