He laid a pile of letters and papers on the sill, nodded and smiled again, and turned away.
Lilith looked over the superscriptions of the letters. They were all for Madame Von Bruyin, Monsieur Le Grange, the lady’s maid or the footman. There was not one for Lilith. Nor was she disappointed. There seldom was a letter for her, so she did not expect one.
She placed the letters on the breakfast table, and turned to look at the papers.
She took up the Times first, of course, and she turned first to the foreign and diplomatic news, hoping against hope—as she had done a thousand times before—that she might see her husband’s name, if it were only a line in the list of guests at some State dinner, or in any casual event.
But no! There was nothing! She was again disappointed, as she had been a thousand times before.
Wearily, drearily her sad eyes wandered over the paper, indifferent now to anything she might find there.
Yet—great Heaven! What was this? Not the name of Tudor Hereward! No; but the answer to a daily, nightly agonized prayer to Almighty God!—or so it seemed to Lilith’s amazed vision. Daily and nightly, in her morning and evening worship, for the last two years, Lilith had prayed:
“Have mercy, oh, Father, upon all poor prisoners and captives; upon all miserable criminals and convicts; bringing the guilty to a profound contrition, to pardon and to peace; bringing the innocent to a full vindication, deliverance and salvation.”
And these words, upon which her wandering eyes became fixed in astonishment, seemed the answer to that prayer.