The clouds were breaking, and a watery sun at this moment lit up the squalid scene. It shone upon this unexpected figure, and it shone also upon the far more surprising appearance of the English girl, in her dainty apparel, picking her way through the muck.
The stranger's keen, alert gray eyes grew fixed, and for a moment he stood, rigid and still as a stone, while his bronzed, finely-cut face turned pale.
Rona stopped short. There was no recognition at first upon her face. But something in the change which passed over his struck a wild conviction into her mind.
It was the missing man—Felix Vanston.
* * * * * * *
How changed! That was her first thought. The image in her memory of a gaunt, pale, bearded youth, thin and stooping, faded and died away. This was a Man, in the fullest sense of all that word can mean. It was fortunate that his own recognition of her had been instantaneous. Even now she was not sure, until he came towards her, through the rotting straw.
His color had not changed, while hers was now fading visibly from the cheeks to which it had rushed in tumult. He was wholly self-possessed and dignified, though his surprise must have been greater than hers. As he came nearer she had a conviction, deep and certain. He had received and read her letter. She could have declared that the lines of his mouth expressed a light, scornful contempt.
Without a word said, she knew and felt herself condemned.
But, whatever the young man's feelings at the meeting, hers must be predominantly those of relief. In spite of the violent shock which his appearance gave her, she was conscious of almost frantic joy, at sight, in that weird place, not merely of a compatriot, but of a friend.
"David!" she uttered at length, using in her confusion the name by which she had always known him. "Then you are alive—you are safe, after all."