"Pray be so kind as to see me. I want to thank you for your goodness to my wife. I landed in London two hours ago on my arrival from America."
He walked up and down the hall while a footman carried the note to his mistress. His heart beat heavily, tortured with the anticipation of horror; to look upon the altered face; to have to tell himself that this was Antonia.
The man came back, solemn and slow, in his rich livery and powdered head. Her ladyship would see Mr. Stobart.
She was sitting in a large armchair by the fire, her face showing dimly in the twilight. He could distinguish nothing but her pallor and the difference in the style of her hair. The flowing curls that he had admired were gone. He felt thankful for the darkness which spared him the immediate sight of her changed aspect.
"I am glad you are back in England, Mr. Stobart, and have escaped the perils of that dreadful war," she said, in a low, grave voice. "But you have had a sorrowful welcome home."
"Yes, it was a heavy blow."
"I hope you had received Lady Lanigan's letter, and that the blow was softened by foreknowledge."
"No, I had no letter; I came home expecting to find all things as I left them. My mind was full of schemes for making my wife happier than I had made her in the past. But I doubt sins of omission are irrevocable. A man may sometimes undo what he has done, but he cannot make amends for what he has left undone."
There was a silence. The shadows deepened. The wood fire burnt low and gave no light.
"I have no words to thank you for your goodness to my wife," he said. "That you should go to her in her loneliness, that you should so brave all perils, be so compassionate, so self-sacrificing! What can I say to you? There is nothing nobler in the lives of the saints. There was never Christian living more worthy to be called Christ's disciple."