Louise looked wistfully in her father’s face, whose sunken cheeks and hollow eyes told of mental suffering greater far than that which their friend had been called upon to bear.
“Will time heal all this agony and pain?” she asked herself; and it was with a sigh of relief that she reached the gate, and her father went straight to his chair, to sit down and stare straight before him at the unlit grate, as if seeing in the burning glow scene after scene of the past, till he started excitedly, for there was a ring at the gate bell.
Louise rose to lay her hand upon his shoulder.
“Only some visitors, or a letter,” she said tenderly.
“I thought—I thought it might be news,” he said wearily. “But no, no, no. There can be no news now.”
“Mr Leslie, miss,” said Liza from the door.
“To see me, Liza? Say that—”
“No, sir. In the drawing-room, sir. ’Tis to see Miss Louise, if she will give him an interview, he said.”
Louise looked wildly at her father.
“Must I see him, father?” she said, with her face now ghastly pale.