He hardly thought such a surprise desirable, and suggested that Nest should go on first. But Hilary, who had missed her sister, had risen to look for her, and met the child the moment after she turned the corner of the house; so that the gentleman had the opportunity of ascertaining that he might, so far as an abrupt introduction was concerned, almost as well have presented himself at first.
“Oh, Hilary! will you see Captain Hepburn?” was her exclamation.
“Nest, what do you mean?” he heard in a hurried, fluttered accent, and he was sure she had stopped short in her approach.
“Don’t be pale, Hilary—don’t be frightened,” said Nest, coaxingly. “You have not seen him since that horrid day, I know; and when I saw him it made me remember all, and made me feel funny, I do not know how; but it goes off, and now I am only glad.”
“But, Nest,” he heard her saying, and there was a catching in her voice, which, to his anxious ear, told of a struggle with excitement and surprise, perhaps of deeper feeling too, “have you seen him?”
He could stand still no longer. Advancing from the porch, he met her on the lawn. She was stooping over her sister when
he turned the corner of the house, but she raised her head at the sound of his feet, and stood still. She really could not take one step toward him, and had not her hand rested on little Nest’s shoulder, perhaps she could hardly even have stood at all. There was a beating at her heart, a throbbing in every pulse, which seemed to suffocate her; there was a mist and confusion before her eyes which, for a moment, blended sky and earth, trees, shadows, and Captain Hepburn, in one wavering cloud of darkness. She had no thought or feeling, except a wish to stand upright, and a sensation that to speak was impossible. How they met she did not know. The warm clasp of his hand on hers was the first thing of which she was quite aware; he was by her, he was looking at her, but he was silent as herself.
The first words he spoke were not those of greeting, but as if they formed a part of a long preceding conversation, and in a tone that implied a whole world of tenderness and anxiety.
“Come in now and sit down; I grieve to see you are still so weak!”
He drew her hand within his arm and led her toward the porch, while she revived to the comforting conclusion that perhaps he thought her agitation was the effect alone of bodily, not mental weakness. She yielded to his guidance, wishing heartily that she could speak, but doubting her power too much to make the effort.