“Is thy friend badly hurt?” said I.
“Ay, sir, she suffers much, but she bears it ever with so brave a heart and so cheerful a face that none would guess it to look at her.”
“Hast thou bandages and swathing-cloths at hand?”
“Nay, not rightly at hand, but a plenty in the sea-chest, which hath not yet been opened. Wilt thou lend a hand—Miles?”
I could but smile to watch the coquetry with which the name was spoken, and to see how a soft tone and glance oiled the wheels of life and made the half-sulky husband her willing slave.
Foreseeing that the uncording of the chest would be a matter of time, I stepped to the door of the nearer chamber (the house boasted but two), and finding it ajar, I bowed my head to its low proportions and entered.
The room had been filled with flowers, in honor of the home-coming of the bride. ‘Tis wonderful to me how thoughtful and tender to women these rough fellows oft be. The window-sash, its panes filled with oiled paper, was swung open and the night wind blew the perfume of wildrose and honeysuckle in my face. I can feel it still. A single candle shed a dim light around and threw a yellow ray on a wooden armchair close to the table.
As I turned me toward this chair, suddenly my heart stopped beating. If the thing had not been so wildly impossible, I could have sworn it was Elizabeth Romney herself sitting there. The maid, whoever she was, had the same delicate curve of ear and throat, the same droop of the eyelid, the very trick of the hand lying open palm upward on the knee.
I brushed my hand across my eyes and looked again. My God!—Incredible!—It could not be!—yet what a likeness!