Once more I seemed to tread the long grass-path that led to the bower; once more a rush of perfume, intoxicatingly sweet, swept over me, and filled me with delight. Again the overblown damask roses shed a shower of petals at my feet, and the large white lilies stood in stately file on each side of the old walk. I was back again in the delicious, dreamy place where my childish days were spent, and all the cares of the present life were forgotten and blotted out, when a loud, harsh noise suddenly broke the spell.
It was only a double knock, but who does not know how unwelcome such a sound may be in the middle of an afternoon nap? Sleep was not such a common blessing that I could afford to lose ever so little of it. Many wakeful nights had made a few moments of oblivion as precious as gold; my sojourn in happy dreamland might have done me a world of good, if it had not been cut short.
Just as the parlour door was flung open, I started up, suddenly conscious that I was in a most ungraceful attitude. Seated in our only easy chair, I had put my feet up on another, and on this extemporised couch I had enjoyed an interval of most blissful repose. There are few who have not experienced the intense sweetness of that sleep which comes to us at unexpected times, and in somewhat inconvenient places—a sweetness which we often miss when we lie down on the orthodox couch at night, and anxiously await the coming of the drowsy god. Even now, when heart and brain are at rest, I can remember those snatches of perfect forgetfulness of this life and its sordid troubles, and I like to fancy that they were sent to me by a Divine kindness.
Half-bewildered, and still entangled in the web of dreams, I rose, and found myself face to face with William Greystock.
"I am afraid I have startled you, Mrs. Hepburne," he said, in a voice which was lunch softer than his usual tone. "You have not been well, I hear—indeed, you are not looking strong."
There was something almost tender in the fixed look of his dark eyes; but it was a tenderness that did not draw me towards him for a moment.
"No, I am not very strong," I admitted, simply. "My husband's illness was long and trying, you know, and anxiety wore me out."
"You are very much changed."
The words seemed to fall involuntarily from his lips, and the pity in his face stung me.
"I was prepared for changes when I married," I said, coldly. "Every girl is. I never expected to go on leading the easy do-nothing life I lived with Lady Waterville."