Mr. Lambert was craving for a sight of his boy, but he could not feel justified in devolving his duties on his curate until after the Epiphany, nor would Olive consent to leave him; so Mildred bravely stifled her homesick longings, and kept watch over the young lovers, smiling to herself over Roy's boyishness and Polly's fruitless efforts after staidness.
From the low bow-window jutting on to the beach, in the quiet corner where Richard had found them lodgings, she would often sit following the young pair with softly amused eyes as they stood hand in hand with the waves lapping to their feet; at the first streak of sunset they would come slowly up the shore. Roy still tall and gaunt, but with a faint tinge of returning health in his face; Polly fresh and blooming as a rose, and trying hard to stay her dancing feet to fit his feeble paces.
'What have you done with Richard, children?' Mildred would ask as usual.
'Dick? ah, he decamped long ago, with the trite and novel observation that "two are company and three none." We saw him last in the midst of an admiring crowd of fishermen. Dick always knows when he is not wanted, eh, Polly?'
'I am afraid we treat him very badly,' returned Polly, blushing. Roy threw himself down on the couch with a burst of laughter. His mirth had hardly died away when his brother entered.
'You have got back, Roy—that's right. I was just going in search of you. There is a treacherous wind this evening. You were standing still ever so long after I left you.'
'That comes of you leaving us, you see,' replied Roy, slyly. 'It took us just half an hour to discover the reason of your abrupt departure.' Richard's eyes twinkled with dry humour.
'One must confess to being bored at times. Keppel was far more entertaining company than you and Polly. When I am in despair for a little sensible conversation I must come to Aunt Milly.'
Aunt Milly was the universal sympathiser, as usual. Richard's patience would have been sorely put to proof, but for those grave-toned talks in the wintry twilights, with which the gray sea and sky seemed so strangely to harmonise. In spite of his unselfishness, the sight of his brother's happiness could not fail to elicit at times a disturbing sense of contrast. Who could tell what years rolled between him and the fruition of his hope?
'In patience and confidence must be your strength, Richard,' Mildred once said, as they stood looking over the dim waste of waters, gray everywhere, save where the white lips touched the shore; behind them was the dark Castle Hill; windy flickers of light came from the esplanade; far out to sea a little star trembled and wavered like the timid pioneer of unknown light; a haze of uncertainty bordered earth and sky; the soft wash of the insidious waves was tuneful and soothing as a lullaby. The neutral tints, the colourless conditions, neither light nor dark, even the faint wrapping mist that came like a cloud from the sea, harmonised with Mildred's feelings as she quoted the text softly. An irrepressible shiver ran through the young man's frame. Waiting, did he not know what was before him—years of uncertainty, of alternate hopes and fears.