Salome started and trembled violently. She could scarcely gasp forth the words of her broken exclamation:
"The Duke of Hereward! Called! Here!"
"Yes, my daughter. So you perceive that your proposed journey to England is forestalled."
"My husband coming here! Oh! how soon will he come? He cannot be here in less than twenty-four hours, can he?" eagerly demanded Salome.
"He may be here in less than six hours. The Duke of Hereward does not have to come from London; he is not there, but in Paris; so you perceive, also, that if you had gone to England, as you proposed to do, you would have missed seeing him there," added the lady, smiling.
"My husband in Paris—so near. My husband to be here this evening—so soon. Oh, this is too much, too much happiness!" exclaimed the young wife, bursting into tears of joy.
"Then you have no dread of meeting him?" suggested the elder lady.
"'Dread of meeting him?' Dread of meeting my own dear husband? Ah, no, no, no! No dread, but an infinite longing to meet him. Oh! I know and feel how I have wronged him. How deeply and bitterly I have wronged him. But I know, also, how utterly he will pardon me. Yes, I know that, as surely as I know that my Heavenly Lord pardons us all of our repented sins!" fervently exclaimed Salome.
"Heaven grant that you may be happy, my child'" said the lady, earnestly.
At that moment the door opened, and an aged nun, one of the attendants in the Old Men's Home, entered the room.