“But he has received pardon?”
“No. The world is still unjust.”
Sir Gordon met her eyes full of reproach; but as she gazed at him her features softened, and she took a step forward and caught his hand.
“Forgive my bitterness,” she said quickly. “It was all a grievous error. Only, now that this message has come from beyond the seas,”—she unconsciously adopted the language used a short time before—“the old wound seems to be opened and to bleed afresh.”
Bayle had uttered a sigh of relief at her words respecting the injustice of the world, and he waited till Mrs Hallam turned to him again.
“I wish to be plain—to speak as I should at another time, but I am too agitated, too much overcome with the great joy that has fallen to me at last—the joy for which I have prayed so long. At times it seems a dream—as if I were mocked by one of the visions that have haunted my nights; but I know it is true. I have his words here—here!”
She snatched the letter from her breast, her eyes sparkling and a feverish flush coming into her face, while, as she stood there in the softened light shed by the lamp, her lips apart, and a glint of her white teeth just seen, it seemed to both Bayle and Sir Gordon that the Millicent Luttrell of the old days was before them. Even the tones of her voice had lost their harshness, and sounded mellow and round.
They stood wondering and rapt, noticing the transformation, the animated way; the eager excitement, as of one longing to take action, after an enforced sealing up of every energy; and as they stood before her half-stunned in thought, she seemed to gather the force they lost, and mentally towered above them in her words.
“You ask me of his letter,” she said at last, half bitterly, but again fighting this bitterness down. “I will tell you what he says to me and to his child.”
“Yes,” said Bayle, almost mechanically; and in the same half-stunned way he looked from her to Julia, who stood with her hands clasped and hanging before her, wistful, troubled, and evidently in pain.