Then he placed himself before the portrait, and thus addressed it, giving vent to his pent-up exaltation,
"I no longer beseech you to speak to me with those beloved lips," he cried, "nor to smile upon me with those eyes that heaven has tinted with its own blue! And yet I must adore your image, which, after all, is lost to me. But what care I, since your immortal soul actuates other lips to breathe your love for me, and kindles other eyes with that same deathless love when silence falls between us? O, Paula, my idol! tell me why I should be so infinitely blessed, when other men languish in their bereavement? Thou knowest now that I am as other men are—as full of frailty and sin as any; then, why am I favored with the lot of angels? O my God, it cannot be that I have died and this is heaven!—this being with you and yet not seeing you, this exquisite aggravation which is mingled agony and bliss! By some strange decree, you are with me again, yet I cannot see, I cannot touch, you. Am I perhaps in purgatory? Or, worse, what if I should wake to find myself in a Fool's Paradise! Heaven forbid; for that would drive me mad, and then my unbalanced spirit would wander gibbering through all eternity, and know you not! Oh, no, no, no! It is the magic of our great love that has united us in this communion, which ameliorates the misery of our transient separation, and I thank God for it! Another day, and mayhap I shall be with you indeed—in the spirit, in heaven! But, oh, my love, my life, my all in all, my divinity, never desert me! In mercy and in love remain with me until the hour of my release; then lead me back with thee!"
Thus more or less coherently he rambled on before the gazing portrait, in wild salutation and petition, until the sudden opening of the door hurled him from the heights of exaltation to earth.
Upon the threshold stood his man, amazed and at the same time abashed.
"You will excuse me, sir," he began brokenly; "but I had no idea you were in the house. I heard voices up here, and I thought thieves had got in, or—or that the place was haunted!"
"I suppose I have the right to come and go and speak in my own house as I choose?" retorted Morton testily, conscious of his inexplicable demeanor, and impotently furious accordingly. "Close the blinds and windows, and shut the room up. Have there been any calls?"
"No end of them, sir—and letters."
Glad to make his escape from a predicament that bordered too closely upon the ridiculous to be comfortable, Morton hastily descended to his office. In the ante-chamber, in which he had received Hubert Effingham on the preceding evening, he found ample affirmation of his man's statement that he had been sought during his absence. The slate was covered with names and requests, while upon a table lay a salver heaped with letters. These he mechanically examined until, at the very bottom of the heap, he came upon a missive which promptly arrested his attention. It was addressed in pencil and unsealed. A moment later and he had possessed himself of the startling information contained within.
He rang the bell in haste and excitedly anticipated the advent of his man by throwing open the door into the hall.
"When was this note left?" he demanded.