“I wish he’d come.”
“Here he is—that’s his ring,” said Winnie, and hurried out to answer the front door bell.
Austin it was, and she questioned him in an eager undertone as he took off his coat in the little hall.
“Any news?”
“Not yet. I’ve been on duty all day, dear. Only just free. I rang up Cacciola, but he wasn’t in, or I’d have gone around to his place instead of coming here. How’s Grace?”
“Terribly down, though she’s been so plucky all day. Come along. She’s dying to see you!”
He was shocked at the change these few days had wrought in Grace. As he had been prevented from attending the wedding he had not seen her for nearly a fortnight. Her radiant girlhood had vanished; she looked ten years older, a woman scathed by sorrow; and yet it struck him that in some subtle way she had become more beautiful, or rather that her beauty was spiritualized.
In the brief interval before he entered she had pulled herself together—only with Winnie, her closest girl-friend, would she betray any sign of weakness—and greeted him with a smile that belied the tragic intensity of her grey eyes.
They had exchanged but a few sentences when there were other arrivals—her father, and Mr. Iverson the vicar, who somehow brought with him a breezy breath of comfort. Grace gave him both her hands.
“Oh, padre, how good to see you.”