“March 3. Hugh came home last November to marry Alice,” were the first words that met her eyes.
“They have taken a little furnished cottage by the sea, at St. Margaret’s Bay near Dover, and they want me to stay with them before they sail for New Zealand. Mrs. Burbage says of course I must go, and I start to-morrow to be with them for a fortnight. I long to see Hugh again, but I’m shy at the thought of meeting his wife. I have never seen her.”
Except for the mention of her return to Fairholme Court, there was nothing written in the book from that date, till May of the same year, and the painful colour crept into Anne’s face as she noticed this.
There was no need for written record. Clearly, as though she had recently lived through the experience, she remembered that fortnight’s visit.
She remembered getting out of the train at the wayside station, the nearest station touched by the railroad, for St. Margaret’s Bay. Her heart was beating rather fast. It was eighteen years since she had seen Hugh. Should she recognize him? He would not know her. When he last came home she was a girl of seventeen. The thought of her present age struck her with a shock of dismay.
There were only two people on the platform. A big burly man, tall and bearded, and beside him a girl in a white serge dress.
Hugh and his wife!
“I am Anne,” she stammered, going up to them.
Hugh put his arms round her with his old impulsive roughness, and then held her away from him.
“Why, you’ve grown, Anne!” he cried gaily. “You were such a little thing! So slight, I mean. Darling, this is Anne. Isn’t she a damned fine woman?”