Slowly she descended the steps, passed through the long hall, and entered the drawing-room, advancing with quiet dignity to welcome the distinguished representative.
He listened a moment to her words, so calm and cold; then, clasping her in his arms, he drew her down beside him, and said:
"Oh, my darling! thank Heaven, I find you still Constance Lyle!"
She tried to draw herself away from his side, but his arms held her tightly, and his hand clasped hers. His eyes were gazing so earnestly and lovingly in hers, as in by-gone days. She tried to speak, but he said:
"Nay, my beautiful love, you must not move or speak until you have heard me through, and then I shall await your verdict. I know you think it so strange that I have not been to you before. I have been the victim of a miserable mistake. The day I entered this city I walked past here to catch a glimpse of you, perhaps. As I neared the door, I beheld seated on the steps that pretty little girl that I afterward saw with you. I stopped, spoke to her, and asked her name. Constance, she told me, and her father's, Gerald. Oh, my love, the long years of suspense were ended to me then! I cannot tell you how dark the world seemed to me then. I struggled on, however, with my sorrows. Then I met you. Your being with Gerald and having the little one with you only too truly proved that my conjecture was right. I saw you, as I believed, the happy wife of Gerald, and knew no difference until this morning. When I met him then, he stopped and urged me to come and see him. I asked after his wife, and remarked that time had changed her but very little, when, to my amazement, he said he did not know I had ever met Mrs. Moreton. Then came the explanation. I parted with the noble fellow only a few moments ago, and here I am now. Tell me, love, that all my waiting—never wandering from my love for you for an hour, has not been in vain. Speak, love!"
"Ernest Ellwood, what mean you by speaking to me thus? Allow me to rise. Your mind is certainly very much affected. Nothing but insanity can excuse this language to me. I will order the carriage to convey you home to your wife and daughter."
"My wife—oh, yes, now I know. Gerald told me. We have all been very busy blundering. My darling, I have no wife or daughter. Louise is only mine by adoption. Her father was my dearest friend. This little one was placed in my arms, an orphan, when only three years old—and she knew no parent but myself. Can I go to your father, love?"
She no longer tried to release herself from his arms. Lower and lower drooped the beautiful head until it was pillowed on his breast. He felt her heart throbbing against his own, and almost bursting with its fulness of joy. He was answered—rewarded for all the years of waiting.
At length she raised her head. In her eyes he saw all the love of years beaming there.
"At last, my Ernest," she said. "I must go to father first and prepare him to see you."