She arose, and with a face as perfectly colorless as a snow-wreath, stood before him.
He took her hand, so small, and warm, and transparent that it looked like an infant's; and pushing back the full golden hair off the fine white brow, gazed long and earnestly into the depths of the large blue eyes, now so unspeakably sad, so deeply reproachful. So long did he gaze that Christie's eyes fell at last, and the golden lashes swept her cheek, while the eloquent blood mantled for a moment to her snowy brow.
"Yes, this is Christie—alive still, and yet so long mourned for as dead," he said slowly. "This is strange; this is wonderful. Christie, how comes this to pass? How is it that, after so many months given up for dead, I find you alive still in this forest cottage?"
"Oh, Willard, Willard! can you ask, after that dreadful night?" she said, in a tone of unutterable sorrow and reproach.
"That dreadful night? What dreadful night, Christie?" he said, looking bewildered.
"Oh, Willard, what a question for you to ask! That you could ever for one instant forget that night of storm and crime!"
"Christie, as Heaven hears me, I know not what you mean. Do you allude to that tempestuous night on which you were supposed to be murdered?"
"Oh, you know I do! You know I do! Oh, Willard, Willard! that you should speak of it like this!" she said, in that low tone of saddest reproach.
"Christie, there is some misunderstanding here. Do you mean to say that I was with you that night?" he said, vehemently.
She did not reply, but her eyes answered the question.