Chris, with her eyes upon the ground, felt a hand on her shoulder, warm breath upon her face.
“You are glad to see me? Then tell me so.”
She looked up suddenly, saw, in place of the wistful face she remembered, eyes full of the fire of recovered light, of youth renewed. Her lover was no longer the deaf and dumb recluse; he was as other men are, but with a charm of gentleness, of sadness past, but remembered, which made him infinitely more attractive in her eyes than any other man could ever be.
“I am so glad,” she whispered, “that I hardly dare to speak for fear I should cry!”
And, with a sob she tried hard to suppress, she brought out from under her cloak, and held out towards him, the little sketch of the sea seen between the trees of Wyngham House.
“When I saw this,” she said, brokenly, “I knew, oh, I knew that you were alive. But you might have let me know before. For I have been so miserable, I wanted to die.”
Her lover took her in his arms; they were under the trees on one side, and in the shelter of the high wall of Wyngham House on the other; and in words a little old-fashioned, a little more fanciful than the modern lover of every day dares to use, he told her of the light which the sight of her from his prison windows had brought into his life, of the new energy she had unconsciously put into him, of the longing he had felt to stand beside her and to feel the touch of her hand.
“Before you came here,” he said, pouring his words into her willing ears with an impetuosity which, in truth, made him well-nigh unintelligible, “Stelfox did not dare to let me out of the rooms in which I was kept, even for ten minutes. He had tried it once, not long ago, and he had only with great difficulty prevented me from attacking that old rascal Bradfield. But when you came, I became at once a different man. I thought no more of Bradfield, or of anybody but you, always you. I lost the dead, sullen patience that my confinement had taught me; I raged like a wild beast shut up for the first time. When I saw Bradfield touch you, as he did that day under my windows, on purpose, I believe, to provoke me, I lost my self-command, and threw at him the first thing that came to my hand. You remember, I dare say. I smashed the window, and nearly frightened you out of your senses. Then Stelfox gave me a lecture which made me ill, really ill, with misery and want of sleep, for two or three days and nights.
“He told me that I had frightened you so much that you would never come near my windows again; that you thought my savage attack was upon yourself, and that, in all probability, you would not dare to stay at Wyngham afterwards. So that at last I became so wretched that he had to be merciful, and to tell me that you were not going to leave Wyngham, and that he would contrive for me to see you again. In the meantime, however, I overheard something said by the men working in the garden, which told me that Bradfield himself was in love with you. This, indeed, I had already guessed; but to hear it confirmed made me so furious that I contrived to pick the lock of my outer door and to get out, with the fixed intention of braining the brute, or, at least, of doing him some severe injury, if I got the chance. I saw him go out, on foot, across the meadows for a walk. I lost sight of him behind the shrubbery, so I thought I would hide among the farm-buildings until he came back. I found the barn door unlocked, so I hid myself there; and presently you came in, as you know. I can’t tell you how I felt. At first it made me giddy to be near you; it seemed as if my brain would burst, as if I must cry aloud or shout for the very joy of looking into your eyes. When your hand touched mine—it was when you put out your hand to take the lantern, I think—I felt a joy so keen, that it was almost like the pain of a stab. When I put my hand over your mouth so that you should not scream, it was almost more than I could do not to kiss you, as I do now.”
He pressed his lips again and again to hers with a passionate vehemence which almost frightened Chris, accustomed as she was to the utmost gentleness on his part. She tried to draw herself out of his arms, but with a sudden change from passion to wistful tenderness, he partly released her, and drew her hands against his breast with a melancholy smile.