She paced about for some time longer and then sat down and resumed her natural manner. Comethup, who had been on the point of offering some sort of consolation, was so disarmed by the ease with which she threw aside any touch of emotion she had displayed that he said nothing.
“Well, boy, I want you to be happy; I’m quite sure you deserve to be. And I don’t know the girl who could help falling in love with you if you set about it in the right way. But do your wooing in your own fashion; I don’t want to interfere.”
Comethup paid another visit to the captain on the following day, announcing his coming by telegraph about an hour or so before he actually arrived. The worthy captain was, of course, delighted to see him, although probably he had his own suspicions concerning the real object of the visit. The young man, emboldened by his conversation with his aunt, and filled with a desperate longing to see ’Linda, left the captain soon after dinner and set off to find her. The captain seemed to understand the matter perfectly, and when Comethup would have offered some excuse for his departure merely clapped him on the shoulder and gently thrust him out of the house.
It was a clear and calm autumn evening, with just that faintest chill in the air which seemed to whisper of a coming winter—a chill so slight that it only quickened the blood, made the air seem purer, and caused one unconsciously to quicken one’s step. As Comethup went along the road which led to the old garden, the sun was setting out beyond the wastes of land behind the town, and the old-fashioned red roofs and the square tower of the Norman church were bathed in the warm light, and all their edges softened by it. He thought he had never seen the old place looking so peaceful before.
As he reached the gates he saw, with a sudden leaping of his pulses, that ’Linda was standing against the one which still hung on its hinges, and was looking out into the road. She sprang forward with a little cry of pleasure as he came near her, and took his hand and drew him quickly into the garden.
“I did not hope to see you so soon again,” she said softly, looking up at him. “When did you arrive?”
“To-day,” said Comethup, holding her hand in both his own and looking into her eyes.
“Only to-day? And you came at once to see me. That was good of you. So many other people would not have troubled, or would have waited until to-morrow. But you came at once.”
There was a new tenderness in her voice, a new light in her eyes—or so he thought—that was not born of mere gratitude. She almost seemed, with her warm fingers twined about his, to be clinging to him; he thought with regret of the desperate loneliness that must have been hers, through the days since last he had seen her; of the weary evenings through which, perhaps, she had stood at the gate, looking out along the road while he was far away.
“I could not have waited until to-morrow,” he said; “I don’t think I should have slept. ’Linda, you don’t know how much, how tremendously I wanted to see you. Dear, I always want to see you more than any one else in the world.”