A Comforter.
Think of it! Think of it! The grey, inhospitable skies, the rain-swept stage, the feeling of hopeless loneliness, as one traveller after another was greeted with loving exclamations, and borne away by friendly watchers; and then suddenly to feel your hand grasped, and laid tenderly on a protecting arm, and to see, looking into your own, the face of all others which you would have wished for, had the choice been given! To feel no longer a helpless unit, belonging to no one, and having no corner of the earth to call your own, but to know that someone had watched for your arrival, and to read how you had been missed, in the flash of eloquent eyes.
“Oh, Jack!” cried Sylvia involuntarily; “oh, Jack!” and clung to his arm with a sob of pure joy and thanksgiving. “Oh, I’m so glad! I was so lonely. How did you—whatever made you come?”
“A great many reasons, but principally because I couldn’t stay away!” replied Jack, not smiling as was his wont, but looking down upon her with an intent scrutiny, which aroused Sylvia’s curiosity. She did not realise how changed she was by the experience of the last few weeks, or what a pathetic little face it was which looked up at him between the dead black of hat and cape.
The brown eyes looked bigger than ever, the delicate aquiline of the features showed all the more distinctly for their sharpened pallor, and Jack looked down at her through the mist, and thanked God for the health and strength which made him a fitting protector for her weakness. The sound of that involuntary “Oh, Jack!” rang sweetly in his ears, and gave a greater confidence to his manner, as he steered her through the crowd.
“Miss Munns told us when you were expected, and we talked of meeting you at the station, but I decided that I had better stay away; then I wrote a letter to welcome you, and tore it up; then for no purpose at all I began looking at Bradshaw, and it seemed there was a train which I could catch. And it rained! It’s dismal arriving in the rain. Next thing I knew I was in the station, and the train started when I was sitting inside, and—here I am!”
Sylvia laughed softly, it was such an age since she had laughed, and it was such a happy, contented little sound that she was quite startled thereat. The custom-house officials were going through the farce of examining the luggage, and while the rest of the passengers groaned and lamented at the delay, Jack and his companion stood together in the background, blissfully unconscious of time and damp.
“Are you glad to see me, Sylvia?” he asked, for the joy of hearing her say in words what voice and eyes had already proclaimed; and she waved her hand round the bleak landscape, and said tersely—
“Look! It felt like that; black and empty, and heart-breaking, and all the others seemed to have friends—everyone but me. I think I was never so glad before. I shall bless you for coming all my life!”
Jack laughed softly, and pressed her hand against his arm. “Poor little girl! I knew just how you would be feeling; that’s why I came. Wouldn’t you have come to meet me, if you had been the man and I the girl?”