It was on his lips to say Thank God—but he reflected, and did not say it. He had held her hands all the time. There was nobody to see them, and the servants on the box were sympathetic and silent. Then he asked, "Will they let me go to you now?"
"You will not ask any leave," she said hastily—"no leave! There are so many things I have to say to you—to ask your pardon. It has been on my heart to ask your pardon every day of my life. I used to think if I had only done that, I could die."
"No dying now," he said, with her hands in his.
"Ah," she cried, with a little shudder, "but it is by dying I am here."
He looked at her pitifully with a gaze of sympathy. He was prepared to be sorry if she was sorry. Even over his rival's death Edward Beaufort felt himself capable of dropping a tear. He could go so far as that. Self-abnegation is very good in a woman, but in a man it is uncalled for to this degree. He could put himself out of the question altogether, and looked at her with the deepest sympathy, ready to condole if she thought proper. He was not prepared for the honesty of Carry's profound sense of reopening life.
"You have had a great deal to bear," he said, with a vague intention of consoling her. He was thinking of the interval that had elapsed since her husband's death; but she was thinking of the dismal abyss before, and of all that was brought to a conclusion by that event.
"More than you can imagine—more than you could believe," she said; then paused, with a hot blush of shame, not daring to look him in the face. All that she had suffered, was not that a mountain between them? She drew her hands out of his, and shrinking away from him, said, "When you think of that, you must have a horror of me."
"I have a horror of you!" he said, with a faint smile. He put his head closer as she drew back. He was changed from the young man she had known. His beard, his mature air, the lines in his face, the gentle melancholy air which he had acquired, were all new to her. Carry thought that no face so compassionate, so tender, had ever been turned upon her before. A great pity seemed to beam in the eyes that were fixed with such tenderness upon her. Perhaps there was not in him any such flood of rosy gladness as had illuminated her. The rapture of freedom was not in his veins. But what a look that was! A face to pour out all your troubles to—to be sure always of sympathy from. This was what she thought.
Then in the tremor of blessedness and overwhelming emotion, she awoke to remember that she was by the roadside—no place for talk like this. Carry had no thought of what any one would say. She would have bidden him come into the carriage and carried him away with her—her natural support, her consoler. There was no reason in her suddenly roused and passionate sense that never again must it be in any one's power to part them. Nor did she think that there could be any doubt of his sentiments, or whether he might still retain his love for her, notwithstanding all she had done to cure him of it. For the moment she was out of herself. They had been parted for so long—for so many miserable years—and now they were together. That was all—restored to each other. But still, the first moment of overwhelming agitation over, she had to remember. "I have so much to tell you!" she cried; "but it cannot be here."
"When shall I come?" he said.