“No,” cried Mary, grasping his arm with both her hands. “Come with me and see your little girl.”
“Oh, my little girl: my little darling!” the poor fellow cried, and resisted no more.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE RESTORATION.
RHODA’S sitting-room was very warm and pleasant and quiet, the safest and most comfortable place—the fire lighting it up with fitful gleams, the windows still glimmering between the curtains with the dim twilight which had not turned to dark, the pictures and mirrors on the walls giving forth gleams of ruddy reflection. There were no longer flowers outside to brighten the prospect, but within groups of plants in every corner, and a tall pot of creamy, fragrant narcissus spreading its delicate spring scent through the room. The warm flicker of the firelight seemed to draw out the sweetness of the flowers, the deeper tints of colour, the reds and browns of the furniture. There could not have been a woman’s apartment more entirely breathing of women, and of comfort, and tranquillity, and peace. Hetty lay on the sofa near the fire, the ruddy glow shedding a pink colour over her still pale face. Rhoda sat at her feet, leaning against the sofa, holding up her eager little face, asking questions in her eager way about Hetty’s home, about the children, about baby, who was so funny. “Oh! I wish I could see him. Oh, I wish I could go and play with them all!” Rhoda said. Hetty, who had been removed here in her mother’s absence to join the little party once more, in the sweetness of that convalescence, which was almost more than coming back to health, lay smiling, answering the child’s questions in a little broken voice of weakness and happiness. Miss Hofland sat on a low chair by the fire, going through her usual little calculations, setting down all the comforts on one side against the very curious condition of this house on the other. All these things that had happened were very mysterious. The whispers of the maids, which could scarcely fail to reach her, were full of suggestions. It was not pleasant to live in a house where such strange things were heard and seen; but then, on the other hand, it was very comfortable. There was scarcely anything one wanted that one could not have. In some families the treatment was very different. She was putting these things meditatively against one another when the servant came in with the lamp. There was an abundant supply of light, as of everything else—no stint of anything—lamps and candles, it did not seem to matter how many were used. It was very comfortable, enough to make up for the many unpleasant circumstances which did not after all touch either her pupil or herself.
Just then the servant, going away after he had placed the lamp, uttered a cry of alarm, and seemed to fall back against the wall, letting go the handle of the door. Miss Hofland started up, feeling that if anything dreadful came in here, into this warm and pleasant place, all the comfort would not make up for such an interruption. She rose so hurriedly that her chair turned over, coming down with a muffled sound on the carpet, and turned her startled face towards the door. Mrs. Asquith had just come in, looking very pale and excited, leaning upon the arm of—no, she was not leaning, she was guiding him with her hand through his arm—a tall, slim man with a strange grey coat, too large for him, and wrapping over his shadowy thinness, a long face, with large projecting eyes, grizzled hair hanging wildly, a ragged beard, and drooping, melancholy moustache hiding the outlines of the tremulous mouth. He had a bewildered, dazed look, and turned his head slowly from side to side, as if he scarcely saw, and did not know where he was.
And before a word could be said, almost before the attention of the girls had been roused, or Miss Hofland’s cry of alarm got vent, the housekeeper rushed into the room. She swept into it like a whirlwind, and placed herself at the other side of that strange figure.