My heart began to beat with the hope—a silly, wild hope it was, for of course I might have known she could not yet have left Cousin Agnes—that it might be grandmamma. And, luckily perhaps, for without it I should not have had courage to enter the drawing-room, this idea lasted till I had opened the door, and it was too late to run away.
How I did wish I could do so you will easily understand, when I tell you that the tall figure standing looking out of the window, which turned as I came in, was that of my stern Cousin Cosmo himself!
I must have got very white, I think, though it seemed to me as if all the blood in my body had rushed up into my head and was buzzing away there like lots and lots of bees, but I only remember saying 'Oh!' in a sort of agony of fear and shame. And the next thing I recollect was finding myself on a chair and Cousin Cosmo beside me on another, and, wonderful to say, he was holding my hand, which had grown dreadfully cold, in one of his. His grasp felt firm and protecting. I shut my eyes just for a moment and fancied to myself that it seemed as if papa were there.
'But it can't last,' I thought, 'he's going to be awfully angry with me in a minute.'
I did not speak. I sat there like a miserable little criminal, only judges don't generally hold prisoners' hands when they are going to sentence them to something very dreadful, do they? I might have thought of that, but I didn't. I just squeezed myself together to bear whatever was coming.
This was what came.
I heard a sort of sigh or a deep breath, and then a voice, which it almost seemed to me I had never heard before, said, very, very gently—
'My poor little girl—poor little Helena. Have I been such an ogre to you?'
I could scarcely believe my ears—to think that it was Cousin Cosmo speaking to me in that way! I looked up into his face; I had really never seen it very well before. And now I found out that the dark, deep-set eyes were soft and not stern—what I had taken for hardness and severity had, after all, been mostly sadness and anxiety, I think.
'Cousin Cosmo,' I said, 'are you going to forgive me, then? And grandmamma, too? I am sorry for running away, but I didn't understand properly. I will go to school whenever you like, and not grumble.'