Suddenly he dropped to his knees and buried his hot face in the cool white sheets and kissed them over and over again. Here was sanctuary! His eyes were wet with tears when he arose to his feet, and his arms went out to the closed door.
“My Lyddy!” he whispered chokingly.
Back there in the rose-hued light of James Brood's study Yvonne cringed and shook in the strong arms of her husband all through that savage storm. She was no longer the defiant, self-possessed creature he had come to know so well, but a shrinking, trembling child, stripped of all her bravado, all her arrogance, all her seeming guile. A pathetic whimper crooned from her lips in response to his gentle words of reassurance. She was afraid—desperately afraid—and she crept close to him in her fear.
And he? He was looking backward to another who had nestled close to him and whimpered as she was doing now—another who lived in terror when it stormed.
CHAPTER XIII
Frederic opened his eyes at the sound of a gentle, persistent tapping on the bedroom door. Resting on his elbow, he looked blankly, wonderingly, about the room, and—remembered. The sun streamed into the chamber, filling it with a radiance that almost dazzled him. He rubbed his eyes, and again, as in the night just gone, his thought absorbed the contents of the room.
He had not dreamed it, after all. He was there in Lydia's bed, attended by all the mute, inanimate sentinels that stood guard over her while she slept. The knocking continued. He dreamed on, his blinking eyes still seeking out the dainty, Lydia-like treasures in the enchanted room.
“Frederic!” called a voice outside the door.