It was very warm that morning and Mildred had seated herself with a book upon the shaded balcony opening from her room, when word was brought her that her husband wished to see her on the front piazza.
“There’s a gentleman with him,—Mr. McGregor,” the servant said, and Mildred felt as if her heart had suddenly risen in her throat, making her choke and gasp for breath.
She knew he would come some time, but had not expected him so soon, and she shook like a leaf as she stood a moment before her mirror.
“He will never know me,” she said, as side by side with the reflection of herself she saw the girl of fifteen years ago; sallow and thin and slight, with eyes too big for her face, and hair too heavy for her head; the girl with the faded calico dress and high-necked apron, who seemed to walk beside her as she descended the broad staircase and went through the hall and out upon the piazza, where she heard her husband’s voice, and Hugh’s.
“I came on business, and intended calling later, but I shall be glad to see Mrs. Thornton,” she heard him say, and then the smothered, choking sensation left her, and, with a little unconscious nod to the other Mildred at her side, she whispered:
“I shall pull through.”
Hugh was standing half-way down the piazza, leaning against a column, with his straw hat in his hand, fanning himself, just as she had seen him do a hundred times when they were boy and girl together, and he was looking at the shadowy Mildred at her side just as he now looked at her, the tall, elegant, perfectly self-possessed woman, coming slowly towards him, every movement graceful, and every action that of one sure pf herself, and accustomed to the admiration she saw in his eyes,—the same kind, honest blue eyes which she remembered so well, but which had in them no sign of recognition as he came forward to meet her, and offering her his hand, welcomed her to Rocky Point, “and America,” he added, while a blood-red stain crept up from her neck to her ear as she felt the deception she was allowing. Hugh was not as polished as Mr. Thornton, nor were his clothes as faultless and fashionable, but he was every whit a gentleman, and looked it, too, as he stood for a moment talking to Mildred in the voice she knew so well and which had grown richer and deeper with the lapse of time, and moved her strangely as she listened to it again.
“I think I should have known him anywhere,” she thought, as she answered his remarks, her own voice, in which the English accent was predominant, steady and firm, but having in it occasionally a tone which made Hugh start a little, it was so like something he had heard before, but could not define.
There was nothing in this English woman, as he believed her to be, which could remind him of Mildred Leach, who was never once in his mind during the few minutes he was talking with her. And still she puzzled him, and all that morning, after his return to his office, her lovely face and especially her eyes haunted him and looked at him from every paper and book he touched, and he heard the tone, which had struck him as familiar, calling to him everywhere, and bringing at last a thought of Mildred Leach and the July morning when she had shelled her peas by the door, and given him a pod as a souvenir. Where was she now, he wondered, and would she come back in the autumn? Probably not. She had held out similar promises before only to break them. She was weaned entirely from all her old associations, and it did not matter, he said to himself, wondering, as he often did, why he had so long kept in his mind the little wayward girl, who had never done anything but tease and worry him, and tell him of the great things she meant to do.
“She has been a long time doing it, unless she calls a life of dependence a great thing,” he said, and then his thoughts drifted to Thornton Park and the bride, who was troubled with no more calls that day, and so had time to rest and go about her handsome house and grounds, much handsomer than when she first rang the front door bell and was told to go to the side entrance by the man who was her husband now, and prouder of her than of all his other surroundings.