He had been thinking of their parting in the shabby room amid pinching poverty that she despised, more than eighteen years ago.
Now they were meeting again, surrounded by all the luxury wealth can bestow, but how valueless it had been in exchange for what it had cost.
He saw before him a beautiful form with the dark head bowed on the folded arms as if in grief, and he stood waiting, hesitating, but she did not look up at him.
He coughed, timidly, to arouse her, and exclaimed hoarsely:
“Ver—Mrs. Dalrymple!”
A start of surprise, and she lifted her pale, excited face, and saw him standing before her—her old love, her discarded husband—older, graver, sadder by eighteen long years.
Yet her heart leaped to meet him in a great, strangling sob of joy.
Without rising from her recumbent position she held out her hand, saying faintly:
“You will pardon my not rising. I have been ill—am yet weak.”
He advanced, and touched the cold hand with his own that was quite as cold—dropped it quickly, and took the seat she indicated close by her divan.