Again and again she fell upon his breast, repeating, in a voice that was almost breathless, but exquisitely touching:
"My darling—oh, my darling! can this be possible? Is this reality?"
Their poor hearts were too full to permit much to be said; nor would it be fair to them, or interesting to others, to rehearse all the little that they did say then. But how much had they to ask, to relate, to explain, and to deplore?
Morley had undergone so much, he had seen so many strange faces, and places too—Rio de Janeiro, with bay, mountains, and isles; Tristan d'Acunha, with its cliffs and mighty cone; Diego Alvarez, with its sea-elephants and fur seals; the Island of the Hermit, with its strange story of old Don Pedro de Barradas. He had encountered, moreover, so many gales of wind, the wreck, with all its contingent woes and horrors, and so forth, that Laurel Lodge, and Ethel's face, figure, and whole image had seemed ten years off—at least, ten years appeared to have elapsed since their sudden separation.
To poor Ethel the intervening blank had seemed greater, for Morley had lived with hope, while she had none; and, to understand and conceive her utter bewilderment, we must bear in mind all she had undergone.
The sudden and unaccountable disappearance of Morley, and the supposed mode of his death (for it was only supposed, after all), had occasioned a more bitter sorrow, a keener and more protracted agony, than she could have endured by weeping at his deathbed, and afterwards knowing that he was at rest in a grave she could see, where she might plant flowers and drop her tears.
To have seen him borne forth from Laurel Lodge to Acton churchyard, amid all the real and paid-for pageantry of woe, would have been actual contentment, when contrasted with all she had suffered—doubt, uncertainty, despair!
Oh, she felt how deeply she must loathe Hawkshaw as the author of all their woe!
But now Morley was beside her, with her hands in his, looking lovingly into her loving eyes, drinking in her murmured words, sitting close, very close, to her, so this reunion was as stunning and bewildering in its own way as their separation had been.
They were dearer to each other now by a thousand degrees than ever they were before, even after Morley's absence in Africa.