"Down by the reefs and the shells
Far down by the channels that furrow the dolorous deep,
Where the torn sails rise with the swells,
And swing in the pulse of the sea.
Silently sleeping his sleep
Down in the sorrowful sea."
But there he stood—tall, large, handsome, with that easy, gracious, indolent air she recalled so well—a smile on his lips as he replied to Mrs. Leslie's eager questions and exclamations.
Then Irene, watching with startled eyes, saw and heard the hum of greetings and introductions. Even Mrs. Stuart unbent from her supercilious hauteur to do honor to the stranger. She had heard of him, and knew that he was well-born and wealthy.
"What shall I do? Will he know me?" Irene asked herself, with a great suffocating heart-beat.
She saw Mrs. Leslie coming to the window with her friend, and nerved herself for the ordeal. Her thoughts flew confusedly back over the past. How strangely they had parted, how strangely they were meeting.
Mrs. Leslie pushed back the rich lace curtain with her white, ringed hand, and showed the beautiful, silent, statue-like girl.
"Miss Berlin, allow me to present my friend, Mr. Kenmore, the dead-alive," she said, smilingly.
[CHAPTER XXXIII.]
There was one instant of breathless silence as Mrs. Leslie's kind introductory words thus fell on the ears of the husband and wife, who until that moment had believed the other dead. Then, with a great effort of will Irene raised her pale face and dark blue eyes to meet Guy Kenmore's gaze.