“Hush! hush!” cried Edith, suddenly, “I hear them coming!”
Hardly breathing, they all listened.
“I can hear nothing but the low moaning of the wind,” cried Mrs. Garside, after a few moments.
“Nor I,” said Jane.
“I tell you they are coming,” said Edith. “There are two of them. Listen! Surely you can hear them now!” She flung open the window as she spoke; then could be plainly heard the sound of hoofs on the hard highroad. A minute or two later the horsemen drew rein at the cottage door. Martha Vince, candle in hand, lighted them up the stairs, at the top of which the ladies stood waiting to receive them.
Very stern and very pale looked the face of Lionel Dering as, followed by Tom Bristow, he walked slowly upstairs as a man in a dream. He was no longer disguised: face, hands, and hair were their natural colour. To see him thus sent a thrill to every heart there. To each, and all of them, he seemed like a man newly risen from the grave.
Hardly had he reached the top of the stairs before Edith’s white arms were round his neck.
“My darling: what is it?” she said. “What dreadful thing has happened?” He stooped his head still lower, and whispered something in her ear. She stared up into his face for a moment, then his arms tightened suddenly round her, and they all saw that she had fainted.
At Park Newton the evening wore itself slowly and gloomily away. Tom and Mr. Hoskyns, assisted occasionally by Mr. Perrins and the vicar, did their best to keep the conversation from flagging, but at times with only indifferent success. None of them could forget what day it was—could forget what took place that night twelve months ago, only a few yards from where they were sitting; and so remembering, who could wonder that the dinner seemed tasteless and the wines without flavour, that the lights seemed to burn low, and that to the imagination of more than one there a shrouded figure was with them in the room, invisible to mortal eyes, but none the less surely there, drinking when they drank, pledging a health when they pledged one, and knowing well all the time which one of the company would be the first to join it in that Land of Shadows to which it now belonged.
Kester was altogether gloomy and preoccupied, and Lionel hardly spoke at all except when spoken to. General St. George was obliged to keep up some show of conversation out of compliment to his guests; but no one but himself knew how irksome it was to do so. What did Lionel intend to do? Would there be a scene—a fracas—between the two cousins? What would be the end of the wretched business? How fervently he wished that the morrow was safely come, that he had seen that unhappy man’s face for the last time, and that he, and Lionel, and Edith were fairly started on their long journey to the other side of the world!