I had pulled out the miniature and now handed it to him. He examined it intently under the bright light of the little acetylene lamp inside the brougham.
“This is another portrait of her? You’re right,—there’s a marvellous likeness. I’d have sworn it was Anne, though the hair is different now. It was cut short in her illness,—Anne’s illness, I mean, of course,—and now it’s a regular touzle of curls. Here, put it up. I wouldn’t say anything about it to Anne, if I were you,—not at present.”
The carriage stopped, and as I stumbled out and along the flagged way, the front door was flung open, and in a blaze of light I saw Mary, and, a little behind her,—Anne herself.
I’m afraid I was very rude to Mary in that first confused moment of meetings and greetings. I think I gave her a perfunctory kiss in passing, but it was Anne on whom my eyes were fixed,—Anne who—wonder of wonders—was in my arms the next moment. What did it matter to us that there were others standing around? She was alive, and she loved me as I loved her; I read that in her eyes as they met mine; and nothing else in the world was of any consequence.
“You went back to Russia in search of me! I was quite sure of it in my mind, though Mary declared you were off on another special correspondent affair for Lord Southbourne, and he said the same; he’s rather a nice man, isn’t he, and Lady Southbourne’s a dear! But I knew somehow he wasn’t speaking the truth. And you’ve been in the wars, you poor boy! Why, your hair is as gray as father’s; and how did you get that wound on your forehead?”
“I’ve had some lively times one way and another, dear; but never mind about that now,” I said. We were sitting together by the fire in the drawing-room, after dinner, alone,—for Mary had effaced herself like the considerate little woman she is; probably she had joined Jim and Pendennis in the smoking-room, that was also Jim’s sanctum.
“Tell me about yourself. How did you get to Petersburg? It was you?”
“Yes; but I can’t remember even now how I got there,” she answered, frowning at the fire, and biting her underlip. A queer thrill ran through me as I watched her; she was so like that other.
“I got into the train at Calais, and I suppose I fell asleep; I was very tired after the dinner at the Cecil and Mrs. Sutherland’s party. There were two other people in the same carriage,—a man and a woman. That’s the last thing I can recollect clearly until I found myself again in a railway carriage. I’ve a confused notion of being on board ship in between; but it was all like a dream, until I suddenly saw you, and called out to you; I was in an open carriage then, driving through a strange city that I know now was Petersburg. I was taken to a house where several horrid men—quite superior sort of men in a way, but they seemed as if they hated me, and I couldn’t think why—asked me a lot of questions. At first they spoke in a language I didn’t understand at all, but afterwards in French; and then I found they wanted to know about that Mr. Cassavetti; they called him by another name, too—”