Marie did not answer—her lips had fallen a little apart incredulously.
"He is staying a few days at Windermere with some friends," Miss Chester went on. "But he is on his way home, and will be here in a few days."
She looked up at her niece.
"I thought you would be so pleased," she said rather piteously.
"So I am, dear, of course! But—well, he has been coming home several times before, hasn't he? And we've always been disappointed."
She went upstairs to her room. Chris was coming home! She looked at herself in the glass and wondered why there was no radiance in her eyes. A week ago she had been nearly wild with delight at the 162 thought of seeing him, but this time somehow it was different.
"I've been disappointed so often, that is it," she thought. "I am not going to think about it at all."
But she could think of nothing else. Would he have changed? What would he be like? Had she got to go back to the old weariness and jealousy when once again she saw him every day? Lately she seemed to have freed herself a little from the shackles of pain and she dreaded feeling their merciless grip upon her afresh.
"Perhaps he won't come," was her last thought, as she fell asleep that night, and for the first time since her marriage she felt that in a way it would be a relief if something happened again to postpone his return.