“Certainly,” he replied.
“You are going out?” cried Julia.
“I must see our old home again, before I go,” said Mrs Hallam, in a sharp, nervous manner.
“And I may go with you, dear?” pleaded Julia.
“No; I must go alone,” said her mother in a strained, imperious manner. “Stay here.”
For answer, Julia shrank back, but only for a moment. Then her arms were round her mother’s neck, and she kissed her, saying:
“Remember Mr Bayle’s advice, dear. Come back soon.”
Mrs Hallam kissed her tenderly, nodded, and hurried into the house.
Ten minutes later, as Julia was seated in the little drawing-room at the tinkling old square piano, and Bayle was leaning forward watching her hands, with his arms resting upon his knees, thinking—thinking of the boyish curate who, in that very place, had told of his first passion, and then gone heart-broken away, there was a quick step on the gravel, and he turned to see the dark, graceful figure of the woman he had loved, her face closely veiled, and her travelling satchel upon her arm, pass through the gate, which closed with a sharp click.
“To stand face to face with the ghosts of her early married life,” he said, in a low voice. “Heaven be merciful, and soften Thou her fate.”