CHAPTER XXXII.
AN UNLOOKED-FOR RETURN.
In spite of her troubles, as she sat by the fire, looking out through the window, fatigue overcame Mildred, and she nodded. But her brain being troubled, and her attitude uneasy, she awoke suddenly from a sinister dream, and as still unconscious where she was, her eyes opened upon the same melancholy foliage and moonlit sky and the dim enclosure of the yard, the scenery on which they had closed. She saw a pale face staring in upon her through the window. The fingers were tapping gently on the glass.
Old Mildred blinked and shook her head to get rid of what seemed to her a painful illusion.
It was Charles Fairfield who stood at the window, looking wild and miserably ill.
Mildred stood up, and he beckoned. She signed toward the door, which she went forthwith and opened.
“Come in, sir,” she said.
His saddle, by the stirrup-leather, and his bridle were in his hand. Thus he entered the kitchen, and dropped them on the tiled floor. She looked in his face, he looked in hers. There was a silence. It was not Mildred’s business to open the disagreeable subject.
“Would you please like anything?”
“No, no supper, thanks. Give me a drink of water, I’m thirsty. I’m tired, and—we’re quite to ourselves?”
“Yes, sir; but wouldn’t ye better have beer?” answered she.