Could she bear to see his look when he saw her changed face? could she assume indifference, or he forgetfulness?
“I will go,” she concluded; and the grey evening shadows were settling down as this idea became a fixed determination. “I will go!—better to seem unkind than to play the fool. My uncle will wait and welcome him—a fitter one to do so than I.” And she rang her bell, and bade Marshall pack the few articles still lying about, and prepare for their immediate departure.
“I think we can catch the night express,” she said; and she went downstairs to speak to her uncle about it.
He was not in the drawing-room, and while she remained for a moment irresolute, there was a noise in the hall as of some one’s arrival.
She tried to move forward to the door, but the blood rushing back to her heart took the power of movement from her. He had come—he had come from out of those great waters—from the grave—out of the past. She forgot the years—she forgot her widow’s weeds—she forgot the dead husband lying in the churchyard beyond the village—she forgot the loss of her beauty—the time that had passed—she remembered nothing save this man whom she had loved, and who had come back again; and when the door opened she stretched out her arms towards him, and cried—“Basil—Basil!”
Then, as in a sort of fright, the dead alive, with a quick glance behind him, answered warningly, while he advanced to meet Phemie—
“And my wife!”
There are times when the very excess of their fear gives men courage; there are occasions when the very intensity of the suffering deadens sensation; and there are also moments in life when, out of the very depth of the previous humiliation, there arises sufficient pride to carry humanity over the most critical moment of its agony and despair.
Such a moment arrived to Phemie then. She had forgotten her pride—her dead—her resolutions; she had stretched out her arms with a great cry of joy to the lost who was found. Another second, and, God help her! she would have let him take her to his heart; but, almost before his name had passed her lips there came crashing down upon her that cruel warning sentence—
“And my wife.”