Her hair done, she lay back limply in her chintz armchair, haunted eyes fixed on the clock; and, after staring became unendurable, she picked up a book and opened it mechanically. It was Grenville, on Spanish Armour. Suddenly she remembered sitting here before with this same volume on her knees, the rain beating against the windows, a bright fire in the grate—and Fate at her elbow, bending in the firelight beside her as one by one she turned the illuminated pages, only to encounter under every jeweled helmet Desboro's smiling eyes. And, as her fingers crisped on the pages at the memory, it seemed to her at one moment that it had all taken place many, many years ago; and, in the next moment, that it had happened only yesterday.
How young she had been then—never having known sorrow except when her father died. And that sorrow was different; there was nothing in it hopeless or terrifying, believing, as she believed, in the soul's survival; nothing to pain, wound, menace her, or to awake in depths unsounded a hell of dreadful apprehension.
How young she had been when last she sat here with this well-worn volume on her knees!
Nothing of love had she ever known, only the affection of a child for her father. But—now she knew. The torture of every throbbing minute was enlightening her.
Her hands, tightly clasped together, rested on the pages of the open book; and she was staring at nothing when, without warning, the doorbell rang.
She rose straight up and pressed her left hand to her side, pale lips parted, listening; then she sprang to the door, opened it, pulled the handle controlling the wire which lifted the street-door latch. Far below in the darkness she heard the click, click, click of the latch, the opening and closing of the door, steps across the hall on the stairs, mounting nearer and nearer. And when she knew that it was he she left the door open and returned to her armchair and lay back almost stifled by the beating of her heart. But when the shaft of light across the corridor fell on him and he stood on her threshold, her heart almost stopped beating. His face was drawn and pinched and colourless; his eyes were strange, his very presence seemed curiously unfamiliar—more so still when he forced a smile and bent over her, lifting her limp fingers to his lips.
"What has been the matter, Jim?" she tried to say, but her voice almost broke.
He closed the door and stood looking around him for a moment. Then, with a glance at her, and with just that shade of deference toward her which he never lost, he seated himself.
"The matter is," he said quietly, "that I drank to excess at the club and was not fit to keep my appointment with you."
"What!" she said faintly.