To see and feel all this was the work of a moment. The moment in which she slammed the door on the protesting clerk, the moment in which also she felt the shock of awaking from her frenzied zeal that would have beaten down all obstacles to save this man's life, to the perception that her zeal would in his eyes seem an absurdity; that her presence there was superfluous if not impertinent; that she had made a fool of herself for nothing.
Sir Francis suffered this inexplicable noisy invasion of his privacy with a look of annoyance and surprise breaking up the composure of his face. Then, seeing who it was who had thus burst upon him, who leant upon the door she had slammed, panting as if pursued, turning frightened, appealing eyes to him, the expression of his face changed, the whole man seemed to change. With a look such as Deleah had never dreamed it possible he could wear he went forward to her; in a tone she had not known his voice to take, he spoke her name.
"Deleah!" he said.
She looked at him; but in rapturous wonder at the light in his eyes, listening spellbound to the delight of her name so spoken, forgetting who she was, where she was, in the whirl of bliss where her senses momentarily swam. Then he held out his hands and took hers, and held them locked in his against his breast.
"My dear child, I was coming to you," he said. "You have come to me instead, my little Deleah!"
CHAPTER XXXIII
The Moment Of Triumph
"While you were in my house I reckoned up the years, many times." He smiled a little sadly, and shook his head, looking down at her. "They never grew any less, Deleah. There are twenty-five between you and me. It is too much! Too much!"
"No!" breathed Deleah, with upturned, adoring eyes.
"And, dear, they are not the only things between us—dividing me from you. A love I felt—a great love I thought never to feel again—in the past—" He looked away from her, over her head into the years that were gone. Then his eyes came back to the eyes that were lifted to him, and he grasped her hands tighter against his breast.