“Yes, my God! so it was,” he said, as he stopped at the yard gate. “Alice—I forget—did I see Alice after that, did I—did they tell me—what is it?”
He dismounted, and felt as if he were going to faint. His finger was on the latch, but he had not courage to raise it. Vain was his effort to remember. Painted in hues of light was that dreadful crisis before his eyes, but how had it ended? Was he going quite mad?
“My God help me,” he muttered again and again. “Is there anything bad. I can’t recall it. Is there anything very bad?”
“Open the door, it is he, I’m sure, I heard the horse,” cried the clear voice of Alice from within.
“Yes, I, it’s I,” he cried in a strange rapture.
And in another moment the door was open, and Charles had clasped his wife to his heart.
“Darling, darling, I’m so glad. You’re quite well?” he almost sobbed.
“Oh, Ry, my own, my own husband, my Ry, he’s safe, he’s quite well. Come in. Thank God, he’s back again with his poor little wife, and oh, darling, we’ll never part again. Come in, come in, my darling.”
Old Mildred secured the door, and Tom took the horse round to the stable, and as she held her husband clasped in her arms, tears, long denied to her, came to her relief, and she wept long and convulsingly.
“Oh, Ry, it has been such a dreadful time; but you’re safe, aren’t you?”