He repressed the defiant protest of his heart, secure in his strong resolve.
“Good-night, Christine,” he said.
“Good-night,” she answered. Her eyes seemed to look at him through a great cloud of sorrow, and her voice was like the speaking of a woman in a dream. There was a great and availing force in the mood that held her. Noel knew she wished to be alone and that she had need of the repose of solitude. So he only clasped her hand an instant, in a strong, assuring pressure, and was gone.
Exhausted, worn out, spent with sorrow, Christine retired at once to her room, and went wearily to bed, wondering what the next day would bring. She soon fell into a deep sleep, and slept heavily till morning, waking with a confused mingling of memory and expectancy in which joy and pain were inseparably united.
XVI.
Noel’s note came early. It announced that his mother would be ready to receive her visitor any time after eleven. It was full of the strongest assurances of love and constancy, and Christine knew it was meant to comfort and support her in her approaching ordeal. She felt so strong to meet this, however, that even Mrs. Murray’s earnest protest that harm would come of the visit failed to intimidate her, and she turned a deaf ear to all her good friend’s entreaties to her to give it up. Mrs. Murray’s advice was for the immediate marriage and departure for Europe, but Christine’s mind was made up, and could not be shaken.
She was feeling strangely calm as she drove along through a part of the great city she had never ever seen before, where there were none but splendid houses, with glimpses, through richly-curtained windows, of luxurious interiors, and where all the people who passed her, whether on foot or in handsome carriages, had an air of ease and comfort and luxury that made her feel herself still more an alien. She did not regret her resolution, but she felt quite hopeless of its result. It would make matters simpler for her, at all events.
When the carriage stopped she got out with a strange feeling of unreality, closed the door behind her, careful to see that it caught, spoke to the driver quietly and told him to wait, and then walked up the steps and rang the bell. During the moment she stood there a boy came along and threw a small printed paper at her feet. It was an advertisement of a new soap, and she was reading it mechanically when the door was opened by a tall man-servant who stood against the background of a stately hall, whose rich furnishings were revealed by the softened light that came through the stained glass windows. Christine was closely veiled, and coming out of the sunshine it all seemed obscure and dim. She asked if Mrs. Noel was at home, and when the man said yes, and ushered her in she desired him to say to Mrs. Noel that the lady with whom she had an appointment was come.