“Was it—could it be?” Bella asked mutely, with wildly beating heart.
Hildegarde, too, was wide-eyed and pale, though even in the dusk, plain to see the vigorous upstanding figure was not a bent old man’s. Bella felt the happy blood come flooding back about her heart; only to ebb again with a suddenness so mighty, that it seemed to withdraw from her, not gladness only, but volition and all feeling—seemed to want to carry out life itself upon its backward tide.
For the man had trodden down the flowers in the border, and pushed his way through the syringa thicket. He stood at the open window, looking in.
“Well, Mr. Louis Cheviot,” said Mrs. Mar, with an affectation of calmness, “where did you drop from?” And then Hildegarde’s helmeted figure rose up like some spirit of woman out of another time. But she stood quite still, and she looked as if she knew she was dreaming.
Cheviot vaulted over the low sill, and came toward her with eyes of wonder. “What’s all this for? Why are you like that?”—but he had grasped her hand.
“That absurd thing on her head? It was to show the boys,” explained Mrs. Mar. “A ball—”
“Are you sure you are you?” Hildegarde found her voice at last.
“Much surer than I am that you are you. I saw your light from the street, and I felt I couldn’t possibly wait to go round and ring the bell. I thought I must come and look in and see what you were like, though I must say I didn’t expect—” He was shaking hands with Mrs. Mar now, but he glanced over his shoulder at the tall white figure and past it to Bella. “I believe I’ve succeeded in scaring at least one of the party. How do you do, Bella? Feel me. I’m not a ghost!”