“Janet,” he cried, and came forward and caught her—not exactly in his arms, but with his hands upon her shoulders, clutching her with a sort of hungry grasp (“as if he were going to eat me up,” she said afterwards). She felt him trembling, thrilling all over, and perhaps it was as well that it was dark, that she could see nothing of the gray hair, etc., but only that the middle-aged doctor had a vibration of haste, of anxiety, of emotion in his arms and hands, and the very lappels of his coat which touched her breast, which was more real than any words, convincing her in a moment, as no explanation from Meredith, for instance, could have done, that the delay was none of his doing, that he was here as quickly as if he had come by that express train.
“Janet! You mean that?” he asked, with eyes that glowed even through the darkness, and a voice that thrilled and trembled too.
“Yes, Dr. Harding, if you do.”
“If I do?” he said, with a sort of suppressed shout, “did you ever have any doubt of me? My little darling! I’m like your father, ain’t I? I’ll be father and mother and husband all together now you’ll have me, child! If I do! How dare you say that, you little torment; you little delight! as if I shouldn’t have rushed head over heels from the ends of the earth!”
“You have taken your time about it, Dr. Harding,” Janet said, “you might have been here on Wednesday, and now it is Friday afternoon.”
“You little love! Have you counted the days?” cried the poor man, who was such a fool; and then he burst into his explanation, how he had indeed come from the ends of the earth, from one of the great towns of the North where he had found “a noble practice” awaiting him. “They’d heard of me, dear, fancy that! How surprised the Clover people will be! And there will be fine company and grand parties, and everything she likes, for my little Janet,” he cried, with a sort of sobbing of joy and triumph in his voice.
To tell the truth, Janet was as much bewildered by the thought that Doctor Harding had been heard of, as anybody in Clover could have been. But she concealed this with a throb of delight in her heart to hear of the great town in the North, and the fine company and grand parties. No Clover then and seclusion, but the world and all its delights. Janet’s heart beat high with satisfaction in her own wise impulse, and the sense of the triumph to come.
As they stood talking, the door of the drawing-room was thrown open, and, looking up at the sound, they both had a view of the interior of the room illuminated with its bright firelight and with the lamp, always the first brought in, which stood on Mrs. Harwood’s table. She in her white shawl, with her white hair and cap and the mass of white knitting on her knees, stood out like a mass of whiteness made rosy by the light from the fire, a most brilliant figure seen from the twilight of the hall. The doctor started a little, and took his hands from Janet’s shoulders.
“Mrs. Adolphus” he said.
“It is Mrs. Harwood; do you know her? But, indeed, her husband’s name is Adolphus.”