It had gone! and in the black night which settled blankly on speaker and audience, a faint, far cry came from outside. More than one woman's voice echoed it with a little startled gasp of suspense.
"It is all right!" called Vincent Dering, "the thing is always popping in and out--I've seen it at Euston--it will come back directly." And then, in response to something he alone had heard, he whispered, "Don't be alarmed; Eugene will set it right in a moment--really--"
As he bent his head a scent of violets--the scent she always used--assailed him; and that half-heard appeal--"Oh, what is it, Vincent?" seemed still in his ears. Even in the darkness he knew she must be close to him. He felt the soft ruffle of the lace about her hand upon his wrist. It trembled, surely. Did it? Or was it only his own bounding pulse. A sudden imperious desire to know--to be certain--swept through him.
Then, with a sort of suffocating rush to heart and brain, came the knowledge that his clasp was answered by that small hand--so small, so clinging, so trustful--so dear--so absolutely dear--so dear!--so very dear!!
As he stood in the darkness, he knew that every mooring was gone, knew that this--this thing--would change--must change--the whole position. It was a light, indeed; a light showing the way--a different way! A sort of fierce exultation took possession of him. He knew, now, that he had been dreaming till then; that he had been blind.
"Ah! what a relief! That dreadful darkness was getting on my nerves," said a calm voice coming to him from out of the flood of white light which seemed to have rent their hands asunder.
Their hands--when she stood yonder? He turned, bewildered, to find a pair of grave black eyes fixed critically on him.
"I--I--he began.
"It doesn't matter," said Laila Bonaventura, with stolid indifference. "You thought it was her hand, of course. I quite understand."
Did she? Did--could--anyone? even he himself?