"It seems but a poor exchange," he said, sadly, "but I shall have to make the best of it."
When he opened the door he was surprised to hear the voices of his grandfather and the Rev. Marshall Brook, in what seemed to him a very animated and even heated discussion.
CHAPTER XIX
AFTER THREE YEARS
After her meeting with Rufus Sterne, Madeline walked slowly back to the Hall with a very thoughtful look upon her face. She knew that this Christmas Eve was to be a fateful time for her, her whole future seemed to be hanging in the balance. On what happened during the next few days—perhaps, during the next few hours—would depend in all probability the happiness, or the misery, of all the years that would follow.
The point to which her life had been steadily drifting would be reached to-night. The man who had been waiting for her would ask her to come into his arms, the consummation of her girlish dreams was about to be realised. Why did she shrink from the fateful moment? Why did she contemplate the meeting with Gervase with something like alarm? Before she reached the Hall she put a question boldly to herself that she had never dared ask before. Had Rufus Sterne anything to do with this half-defined fear that haunted her. Suppose he had never crossed her path—had never awakened her gratitude by his courage and chivalry, had never touched her sympathy by his vicarious suffering—would she at this moment be almost dreading the appearance of Gervase Tregony on the scene?
Till she met Rufus Sterne, Gervase had been her ideal. His bigness, his masterfulness, his fearlessness, his daring had awakened in her a sense of awe. He was her ideal still in many respects. She never expected to see a more soldierly man, never expected to hear a voice that was more clearly meant to command, never anticipated a stronger arm to lean upon.
And yet there was no denying the fact that the brightness of the image had been somewhat dimmed of late. In point of bigness, in point of masterfulness, and, above all, in point of social position, Rufus Sterne was not to be mentioned in the same day with Gervase Tregony, and yet Rufus Sterne, poor and friendless as he was, had touched her heart and her imagination in a way that Gervase had never done.