"I must go," said Felicita, at last. "I wish I had not invited visitors for to-night."
"I cannot come in this evening," Phebe answered; "but Felix is there, and Canon Pascal is coming. You will do very well without me."
She breathed more freely when Felicita was gone. The dimly-lighted studio, with the canvases she was at work upon, and the pictures she had painted hanging on the walls, and her easels standing as she had left them three or four hours ago, when the early dusk came on, soothed her agitated spirit now she was alone. She moved slowly about, putting everything into its place, and feeling as if her thoughts grew more orderly as she did so. When all was done she opened the outer door stealthily, and peeped out. Yes; he was there, leaning against the railings, and looking up at the brilliantly-lighted windows. Carriages were driving up and setting down Felicita's guests. Phebe's heart cried out against the contrast between the lives of these two. She longed to run out and stand beside him in the darkness and dampness of the November night. But what good could she do? she asked bitterly. She did not dare even to ask him in to sit beside her studio fire. The same roof could not cover him and Felicita, without unspeakable pain to him.
It was late before the house was quiet, and long after midnight when the last light was put out. That was in Phebe's bedroom, and once again she looked out, and saw the motionless figure, looking black amidst the general darkness, as if it had never stirred since she had seen it first. But whilst she was gazing, with quivering mouth and tear-dimmed eyes, a policeman came up and spoke to Jean Merle, giving him an authoritative shake, which seemed to arouse him. He moved gently away, closely followed by the policeman till he passed out of her sight.
There was no sleep for Phebe; she did not want to sleep. All night long her brain was awake and busy; but it found no way out of the coil. Who can make a crooked thing straight? or undo that which has been done?
CHAPTER XIX.
IN HIS FATHER'S HOUSE.
When Phebe entered Westminster Abbey the next day the morning service was already begun. Upon the bench nearest the door sat a working-man, in worn-out clothes, whose gray hair was long and ragged, and whose whole appearance was one of poverty and suffering. She was passing by, when a gleam of recognition in the dark and sunken eyes of this poor man arrested her. Could he possibly be Roland Sefton? The night before she had seen him only in a friendly obscurity, which concealed the ravages time, and sorrow, and labor had effected; but now the daylight, in revealing them, cast a chill shadow of doubt into her heart. It was his voice she had known and acknowledged the night before; but now he was silent, and, revealed by the daylight, she felt troubled and distrustful. Such a man she might have met a thousand times without once recalling to her memory the handsome, manly presence and prosperous bearing of Roland Sefton.
Yet she sat down beside him in answer to that appealing gleam in his eyes, and as his well-known voice joined hers in the responses to the prayers, she acknowledged him again in her heart of hearts. And now all thought of the sacred place, and of the worship she was engaged in, fled from her mind. She was a girl at home again, dwelling in the silent society of her dumb father, with this voice of Roland Sefton's coming to break the stillness from time to time, and to fill it with that sweetest music, the sound of human speech. If he had lost every vestige of resemblance to his former self, his voice only, calling "Phebe" as he had done the evening before, must have betrayed him to her. Not an accent of it had been forgotten.