She was his own child—there could be no doubt about that; but oh! so changed, so dreadfully changed—a spectral shadow only of her former self was she now!
What was he to do? What could he do? He dare not, for very pride sake, hazard a scene. But how receive her? what could he say? She anticipated him.
In a firm, clear voice, she exclaimed, addressing herself to him—
“I was unaware that you were honoured with the presence of guests, sir, or I should have not joined the circle until you assembled in the drawing-room. I hope they and you will accept my apologies for presenting myself here, either too soon or too late.”
“For coming here at all,” thought Grahame, with an inward groan.
Mrs. Grahame seemed to contract—to shrivel into a thin, old woman—while Margaret let her eyes close, and her brow fall. She sealed her lips, too, and sat like a granite figure, and became almost of the same hue.
Malcolm looked at his sister, and drank another glass of port.
“It appears to me,” he thought, “that by-and-bye there will be a serious disturbance in this house.”
Of all, Evangeline alone recognised her sister as her sister. Retiring by nature, she may have been, but she was bold in this. She rose from her seat, and passing with more display than she was in the habit of making behind those who sat between her and Helen, she heeded not her father’s stern look or her mother’s stony aspect, but she caught her sister’s hands, and pressed them. She bent over, and kissed her cold, cold forehead.
“Welcome home, Helen, dearest!” she said with passionate tenderness; but there her speech left her, and tears thronged into her eyes.