At these words his listener started, dropped the little hand he had kindly taken, the crimson blood suffusing his brow. He cast one hurried glance on the object of their conversation, then with irresolute quietness turned away, and paced the room with hushed but rapid steps, as if to calm some sudden storm of troubled feeling, the boy's innocently spoken words had awakened in his breast.
When next he paused before the couch, the deep flush had passed away, leaving his countenance paler than before, though calmer and more composed; and smiling kindly upon the watchful child, as if to promise him that his injunctions should not be disregarded, he reverently stooped, and "very gently," as the boy had enjoined, touched with his lips the fair white hand which drooped by Mary's side; and when again he raised his head, the wondering child perceived a tear glistening in the tall, pale stranger's eye. And no wonder if the heart of Eustace Trevor swelled with peculiar emotion at that moment! The last time his lips had pressed the form of woman it had been in that kiss of agony, in "that last kiss which never was the last," which, in his strong despair and mighty anguish, he had imprinted on the cold, cold brow of his mother, ere they hid her from his sight for ever!—his then only beloved on earth, with whom all the light and hope of his existence would be quenched for ever!
And must he not now turn away from her he had learnt since to love, with a love such as he had thought never again to feel on earth?—from that being, fair, and gentle, and good as the object of his soul's first pure, faithful idolatry: she whose sleeping smile—cold, pale and tranquil almost as that which had greeted his arrival that night of never-to-be-forgotten misery—now welcomed the exile on his homeless, hearthless, desolate return!
Must he turn away, and never look on her—never look on Mary thus again? Was it the last time, as it had been the first, that he should ever dare to press that dear hand as now he had done? Nay, more—must he see it given to another?—would he be called upon to crown the measure of that generous mercy with which he had come, his heart overflowing—by withdrawing the restraining hand he had, for the few last years, held between his unnatural enemy, and that innocent object of his enemy's covetous affections? Was he to be called upon—yes, perhaps by Mary herself—to abstain from his threatened exposure of the past, and stand from between Eugene and herself?—now, in his hour of triumph, to be merciful, generous and forgiving in this also?
For why else did he see her here?—why, if the purport of her letter still held good, that she had bade adieu—cancelled for ever her engagement with her former lover? Why, then, was she here, in the very place where she had first fallen into this dangerous snare?
Ah, no!—he saw it all too plainly! Impelled by the impulse of a woman's mistaken, but generous devotion, her lover's fallen fortunes, whilst engaging her pity, had redeemed his offences in her eyes, and recalled her alienated affections; that she was here, like a ministering angel, to assure him of this—to console him, to sympathize; perhaps to ward off, by her intercession, the disgrace and ruin to which his injured brother's dreaded coming threatened to overwhelm the object of her solicitude.
But he had no time to dwell on these things. There had been something in his touch, light as it had been, which proved sufficient to break the charm of slumber. Mary slowly unclosed her eyes, and murmuring:
"Are you there, Charlie?" looked up and beheld her new companion. One uncertain bewildered gaze she fixed upon his face, then gliding to her feet cried: "Mr. Trevor, are you really come?" and burst into tears.
"Yes, Miss Seaham, I am come," was the reply, in a voice trembling with emotion; and taking the hands she had extended towards him, gently reseated her on the sofa, and sat down by her side, looking with earnest mournfulness in her face.
"Yes, I am come, and thank you for this feeling welcome, which is but too much required, for you may well imagine what a coming, one such as mine must be."