They were quite close now.
And Eva, too, looked at them, and she, too, saw the face she had never thought to see again. With all her eyes, and with her lips parted as though to cry out, she gazed at the sight before her—slowly, slowly, taking in all it meant.
They were nearly level now.
Then there leaped up into her eyes and face—the eyes and face which a second before had been so calm and statue-like—a wild light of love, an intensity of passionate and jealous desire, such as is not often to be seen on the faces of women.
“Ernest there, and Ernest blind, and being led by the hand of Dorothy, and looking happy with her! How dared she touch her love! How dared he look happy with her!” Those were the thoughts which flashed through her troubled mind.
She made a step towards them, as though to address him, and the blind eyes fell upon her lovely face, and wandered over it. It made her mad. His eyes were on her face, and yet he could not see her. O God!
Dorothy saw the motion, and, moved by an overmastering instinct, threw herself between them in an attitude of protection not unmixed with defiance. And so, for a second, their eyes flashing and their bosoms heaving with emotion, the two women stood face to face, and the blind pathetic eyes wandered uneasily over both, feeling a presence they were unable to define.
It was a tragic, almost a dreadful scene. The passions it revealed were almost too intense for words, as no brush can justly paint a landscape made vivid by the unnatural fierceness of the lightning.
“Well, Doll, why do you stop?” Ernest said, impatiently.
His voice broke the spell. Eva withdrew her arm, which was half outstretched, and touched her lips with her finger as though to enjoin silence. Then a deep misery spread itself over her flushed face, her head sank low, and she passed thence with rapid steps. Presently the nurse with the baby followed her, and Dorothy noticed vaguely that this child had also a mark upon its forehead. The whole thing had not taken forty seconds.