"Yes, he told me ... What time"—the indifference of his tone!—"what time do you think Miss McGuire and—er—Mrs. Adaile will be back?"
"Not for hours yet," she said; "I daresay it will be three or four o'clock." She looked away from him. He thought she didn't guess!
Presently the lights were turned out. People said "good-night," and bade him "good-bye." But for very shame he would have sat alone in the salon till it was time for him to start—sat there just to see the woman pass through the hall.
In his bed he listened—he lay in the darkness listening, holding his breath. He wanted to hear her come home; to hear her would be something. The wind was rising, and alternately it tricked and terrorised him; he trembled lest a gust should drown the faint stir of her return. It was a long, long while that he had listened. Sleep pressed upon his eyelids, but he would not yield. Once it was mastering him, and he twitched to wide wakefulness in the guilty fear that he had missed her.
The blustering wind, and the clock of St. Ouen made the only sounds.
He saw the door opening with the dim notion that he was being called too soon. For a mere vague moment, which seemed dishonour to him in the next, he beheld without realising her. He raised himself slowly on his elbows, and it thrilled through him that she was moving to his side.
"I've come to say 'good-bye' to you, Con."
"Mrs. Adaile!" The name was all that he could whisper. "Oh, Mrs. Adaile!"
"I've been horrid to you. Haven't I?"
"No, no," he said strenuously, "it was I; I want to beg your pardon. Forgive me! Oh, you do forgive me, don't you? It's been awful."