Rupert's eyes were fixed on the girl's face, which had grown eager and intent over the thoughts she was trying to express, and as he watched her a smile broke up the ruggedness of his own features. She was quite unconscious of his gaze, but a soft colour had come into her cheeks as she spoke, her eyes were very deep and bright, and the man who looked at her realised that hers was more than mere girlish prettiness. She had taken off her hat, and the sunlight fell upon the dusky masses of her hair, showing golden gleams in its dark threads. Her eyes, green and deep and very soft, made Rupert think of a stream in Switzerland, beside which he had stood only a few weeks back, a stream whose waters shone in the sunbeams, showing dark and green and soft in the shade. The colour that had crept into the pure whiteness of her cheeks, tinted them as a white rose is sometimes tinted; and for the first time Rupert was aware of a faint, yet definite likeness, between the girl at his side and the woman he had loved. Perhaps it was in her expression more than in any actual resemblance between the two women's faces, that the likeness lay, for something of Margaret's nobility and serenity, seemed to be reflected on the younger countenance, and with that flashing thought, there flashed into his mind, too, the words Margaret had spoken to him, before she died. He had never remembered those words again until now, and they recurred to him with extraordinary force.
"She would make a man who cared for her, a most tender and loving wife. She has a sweet, strong soul."
"A sweet, strong soul." Those words rang in his brain with odd persistence, whilst his eyes watched Christina's profile, as she sat silently looking out again across the moorlands.
A—sweet—strong soul. And there was such a strange restfulness, too, about the personality of the girl, young though she was; he remembered how conscious he had been of that restfulness on the day when he had sat and talked to her, in Mrs. Nairne's parlour. That same restfulness stole over him now, and some of the haunting misery within him died away.
"So you don't believe in a ruthless chopping away of the past?" he asked, going back to her last words.
"Oh! no," she exclaimed vehemently. "I am sure we are meant to use the past as a foundation stone for the future. Each thing in turn comes into our lives—joy, sorrow, pain, difficulty; and they all have to help together to build it up into perfection. But—I have no business to be sitting here preaching sermons," she added lightly. "I must go home, and relieve Mrs. Nairne of Baba, and write to Cicely, and——"
"No; wait here a little longer," he interrupted imperiously, laying a hand on her arm, as she attempted to rise. "I am a returned traveller, and you are to tell me all the news before you go back to Baba, who, I am morally convinced, is supremely happy with Mrs. Nairne."
"Supremely," Christina laughed. "She was going to help warm the scones for tea; perhaps you will come and help us eat them," she added shyly. "Baba would be so pleased if you came to have tea with us again."
"And you? Would you be pleased?"
"Of course," but she looked away from him as she spoke, and the soft rose tints on her face deepened ever so slightly, "Baba and I were very proud of giving you tea in the little parlour, last December."