The stranger let the door swing softly to behind him, and stood beneath the shadow of the porch, not caring to advance any further, or to disturb the congregation by his presence.
Mary could not see him very plainly at first. She could only dimly define the outline of his tall figure, the waving masses of chestnut hair tinged with gleams of gold; but little by little his face seemed to grow out of the shadow, until she saw it all,––the handsome patrician features, the luminous blue eyes, the amber moustache,––the face which, in Oakley Street eight years ago, she had elected as her type of all manly perfection, her ideal of heroic grace.
Yes; it was Edward Arundel. Her eyes lighted up with an unwonted rapture as she looked at him; her lips parted; and her breath came in faint gasps. All the monotonous years, the terrible agonies of sorrow, dropped away into the past; and Mary Marchmont was conscious of nothing except the unutterable happiness of the present.
The one friend of her childhood had come back. The one link, the almost forgotten link, that bound her to every day–dream of those foolish early days, was united once more by the presence of the young soldier. All that happy time, nearly five years ago,––that happy time in which the tennis–court had been built, and the boat–house by the river restored,––those sunny autumn days before her father's second marriage,––returned to her. There was pleasure and joy in the world, after all; and then the memory of her father came back to her mind, and her eyes filled with tears. How sorry Edward would be to see his old friend's empty place in the western drawing–room; how sorry for her, and for her loss! Olivia Marchmont saw the change in her stepdaughter's face, and looked at her with stern amazement. But, after the first shock of that delicious surprise, Mary's training asserted itself. She folded her hands,––they trembled a little, but Olivia did not see that,––and waited patiently, with her eyes cast down and a faint flush lighting up her pale cheeks, until the sermon was finished, and the congregation began to disperse. She was not impatient. She felt as if she could have waited thus peacefully and contentedly for ever, knowing that the only friend she had on earth was near her.
Olivia was slow to leave her pew; but at last she opened the door and went out into the quiet aisle, followed by Mary, out under the shadowy porch and into the gravel–walk in the churchyard, where Edward Arundel was waiting for the two ladies.
John Marchmont's widow uttered no cry of surprise when she saw her cousin standing a little way apart from the slowly–dispersing Kemberling congregation. Her dark face faded a little, and her heart seemed to stop its pulsation suddenly, as if she had been turned into stone; but this was only for a moment. She held out her hand to Mr. Arundel in the next instant, and bade him welcome to Lincolnshire.
"I did not know you were in England," she said.
"Scarcely any one knows it yet," the young man answered; "and I have not even been home. I came to Marchmont Towers at once."
He turned from his cousin to Mary, who was standing a little behind her stepmother.
"Dear Polly," he said, taking both her hands in his, "I was so sorry for you, when I heard––––"