Well, he was seeing it from a yacht, but ah, God! seeing it alone—alone. And where was she?
So intense and vivid was his remembrance of her that he could feel her presence near. If he turned his head, he felt he should see her standing beside him, her strange eyes full of love. The very perfume of her seemed to fill the air—her golden voice to whisper in his ear—her soul to mingle with his soul. Ah yes, in spirit, as she had said, they could never be parted more.
A suppressed moan of anguish escaped his lips, and his father, who had come silently behind him, put his hand on his arm.
"My poor boy," he said, his gruff voice hoarse in his throat, "if only to
God I could do something for you!"
"Oh, father!" said Paul.
And the two men looked in each other's eyes, and knew each other as never before.
CHAPTER XXIII
Next day there was a fresh breeze, and they scudded before it on to Naples. Here Paul seemed well enough to take train, and so arrive in England in time for his birthday. He owed this to his mother, he and his father both felt. She had been looking forward to it for so long, as at the time of his coming of age the festivities had been interrupted by the sudden death of his maternal grandfather, and the people had all been promised a continuance of them on this, his twenty-third birthday. So, taking the journey by sufficiently easy stages, sleeping three nights on the way, they calculated to arrive on the eve of the event.
The Lady Henrietta would have everything in readiness for them, and her darling Paul was not to be over-hurried. Only guests of the most congenial kind had been invited, and such a number of nice girls!
The prospect was perfectly delightful, and ought to cause any young man pure joy.