It had become so dark without that the night had seemed far advanced, but within lights were shining. The door of the room stood open, admitting a cheerful glimmer; the sound of voices was audible. Mary came quickly in, shutting the window behind her, her excitement risen to fever point. She found herself confronting the ghostly figure, which stood bewildered in the middle of the room. Even now, even here, sure as she was that it was a man, and a helpless one, who stood before her, the horrible alternative, the wild suggestion, that at her touch that shadow might dissolve and melt away, and leave her mad with the awful encounter, flashed through Mary’s confused brain. To stand by him in the dark room was somehow more appalling than to follow through the free air and space. But it was only in that flash that she remembered herself at all. The poor wanderer had known his way when he was making that devious course round the house: he had come soberly with an evident intention through the clumps and bosquets to this window—he had meant all along to get here, to enter by it, to pursue his wild search for his child. But the open door on the other side, the lights gleaming, the sounds of the household, all active and awake, bewildered him. He stopped short; perhaps he had already seen that there was no one in the bed. He stood wavering, tremulous, diverted from his intention, looking wildly round him. When he caught sight of Mary he shrank back, as if to escape. Trembling as she was, her lips almost refusing to utter the words that came to them, her limbs to support her, she tottered up to him, and caught him by the arm.
“Yes,” he said, retreating a little before her. “Don’t be angry—I wanted to thee my little girl.”
“Oh, John!” cried Mary. “Cousin John!—oh, dear John, you that were always so good, why won’t they let you live as you ought in your own house?”
He stepped still further back, with a gesture of dismay. “Who is that?” he said. “You’re not Mrs. Mills. I don’t know who you are.”
“Oh yes, John, you know me, if you will only think; I’m Mary. You remember Mary, your little cousin, to whom you were always so good?”
“Mary?” he said. “I know your voice, and I know your name: but they will not like it. They thay I’m not fit—Mary—I wonder if I would know you if I thaw you. But don’t tell them I’m here; I daren’t go into the light.”
“Cousin John,” said Mary, “tell me who you think I am.”
He drew back a little farther; it seemed to bewilder him to be so near her. “I think,” he said, “you must be little Mary that used to be at home in the old time, Mary that wath married to the curate. I wath very found of Mary. But don’t tell them I’m here. I’ll go back—I’ll go back—to my own little place.”
“This is your place, John. Oh, dear John, who has done this to you? You shall not go back; you shall stay in your own house, John.”
“It will only get you into trouble,” he said in a dreamy tone. “She thaid—she told me——” his voice ran off into a murmur of sound; perhaps the effect of that she, which he uttered with a sharp sibilation, was too much for him; or perhaps the thought of her was too much. “Perhapth I had better go back.”