Instinctively she shrank away from him, and he, observing this involuntary act of repugnance, flushed scarlet from mingled pain and shame. Then the crowd surged in between them, and Helen, with a wildly throbbing heart and a sense of despair and hot rebellion almost suffocating her, forced her way on shore with all possible speed, sprang upon the first car she saw, and hoped she had effectually evaded that startling apparition.
But her peace of mind had been destroyed. All the brightness and joy of that happy day were suddenly blotted out, swallowed in by the terror inspired by this unlooked-for calamity which now threatened anew both herself and Dorothy.
It was a terrible, a crushing, blow. She could not sleep that night; she could not apply herself to work of any kind the following day; she dared not go out of the house, lest she meet that ghost of the past again, and every time her bell rang a shock of fear that he might be without, seeking entrance, went quivering through all her nerves.
"Would he hunt her down?" she was continually asking herself. "Would he dare intrude himself upon her life again, after all these years?" She turned faint and heartsick at the thought. But the day waned, the dinner hour passed, and, with the curtains drawn and lights all about her, she began to experience more of a feeling of security; to take courage, and try to assure herself that she had successfully eluded him, and he would not be able to ferret her out in that great city, even if he tried.
She had just settled herself for the evening with a new book—one of several that Dorothy had given her before going away, telling her, with a suspicion of tears in her voice: "For your evenings, mamma, dear, so you will not miss me quite so much"—and was beginning to get really interested in the plot of the story when her bell rang a sharp, shrill peal.
Her maid, who had been with her for several years, had sailed for Scotland for a long-promised visit home, when Helen went into the country for the summer, and, not yet having secured another to take her place, she was obliged to answer the summons herself, which she did with a quaking heart.
"A message for Mrs. Ford," came up through the tube.
Helen's fear was instantly turned into joy.
"A message from Dorothy," she thought, for she had received either a letter or a telegram from the happy bride almost every day since her departure.
"Come up," she eagerly responded, as she pressed the button governing the lower entrance. Presently, hearing steps on the stairs, she swung open the door of her suite, when, with a gasp of dismay, she found herself face to face with John Hungerford.