“Forgotten! No, no, no! There is no one in the world so good and true as you are. I love you with all my heart and soul.”
Her face was hidden on his breast, but she lifted up her arms and clasped them round his neck. He seated himself in his accustomed chair—it was standing where it had always stood before he went away—and took her upon his knee, as if she had been a child. Then a great storm of sobs suddenly burst from throat and bosom, a flood of tears streamed upon his breast, and he felt her arms trembling as they clasped his neck.
“My own dear love,” he murmured gently, “one would almost think you were sorry I have came back.”
She could not answer him at first for her sobs, but she shook her head, and at last the words, “No, no, no,” came from her lips; and he kissed and calmed her with almost fatherly gentleness. And then they went into the dining-room, where the soup-tureen was waiting for them on the sideboard, with a neat little parlour-maid—not Susan, but another—ready to minister to them.
The table had been decorated by Isola’s own hands. Dark crimson roses were lying on the fair white damask; one tall glass stood in the centre with three slim golden lilies, pale and heavy-headed, which filled the room with perfume. These came from one of the hothouses at Glenaveril, whence good-natured Mrs. Crowther had sent a basket of exotics in honour of the colonel’s return. The lamplight, the flowers, the pretty old Wedgwood service of creamy white and dull brown, made up a feast for Martin Disney’s eye, after a life spent mostly under canvas. He looked from the gaily adorned table to the face beside him, pallid and pinched, despite its sweetness.
“My dear one, you are looking very ill,” he said, with an anxious air.
“What an ungallant speech!” she answered, smiling at him with unexpected gaiety. “I have been fretting at your long, long absence, and you reproach me for my deteriorated appearance. Never mind, Martin, you will see how rosy and bright I shall get now our parting has come to an end.”
“Yes, love, we must coax the roses back to your cheeks. I must have a good mount ready for you when the cubbing begins, and a few morning gallops will soon make a change in my fragile wife’s appearance. And I’ll charter a yacht and steep you in ozone.”
“Oh, one gets enough of that on shore, there is no need to go further.”
“But I thought you adored yachting? It was one of our grand schemes for the future, to hire a modest little yawl and go round the coast to Clovelly. Have you forgotten?”