Then there rang through the silent woods and the grey night a wonderful cry. Lilias was not mistress of herself; the whole world went round and round with her, the great house behind him seemed to move, to break into unequal outlines, to crash together and fall. Her voice sounded like something independent of her, a wild creature crying out in the night. She threw out her hands wildly to grasp at something, she did not know what, to hold by and sustain herself. There was nothing near her except him. He was trembling too. He took her hands into his without any presumption or mistake of her meaning.
"I have frightened you," he said. "It is to do more harm, always more harm, that I come. But lean upon me, you know that I mean no evil—it is not to take any advantage."
Lilias did not hear what Lewis said. She heard his voice, that was enough. She discovered that it was he with a revulsion of feeling which there was nothing in her to withstand.
"Oh! where have you been so long—so long? and me that wanted you so!" she cried.
[POSTSCRIPT.]
(Which is scarcely necessary.)
Inside the lighted windows which threw so cheerful a gleam upon the soft darkness of the night outside, Margaret and Jean were seated, with their heads very close together, bending over a letter. They were reading it both together, with great agitation and excitement. The faces of both were flushed and eager; there was a controversy going on between them. Nothing more peaceful than this interior, the little fire burning brightly, the lamp on the table, the wainscot reflecting the leap and sparkle of the burning wood, but nothing more agitated than the little group, the faces so like each other, so close together, lighted up with all the fire and passion of civil war.
"She is beginning to forget him," Margaret said. "I will send him his answer to-night, and she need never know. Why should the little thing be disturbed again? She has had a terrible year, but it is all over, all over now."
"All over now he has come. In no other way will it ever be over."