The question went no further, for Kate Gaunt sprang to her feet, with a loud scream, and stood glaring at Griffith Gaunt, and he at her.
And thus husband and wife met again,—met, by some strange caprice of Destiny, on the very spot where they had parted so horribly.
CHAPTER XXXI.
The gaze these two persons bent on one another may be half imagined: it can never be described.
Griffith spoke first. "In black!" said he, in a whisper.
His voice was low; his face, though pale and grim, had not the terrible aspect he wore at parting.
So she thought he had come back in an amicable spirit; and she flew to him, with a cry of love, and threw her arm round his neck, and panted on his shoulder.
At this reception, and the tremulous contact of one he had loved so dearly, a strange shudder ran through his frame,—a shudder that marked his present repugnance, yet indicated her latent power.
He himself felt he had betrayed some weakness; and it was all the worse for her. He caught her wrist and put her from him, not roughly, but with a look of horror. "The day is gone by for that, madam," he gasped. Then, sternly: "Think you I came here to play the credulous husband?"
Mrs. Gaunt drew back in her turn, and faltered out, "What! come back here, and not sorry for what you have done? not the least sorry? O my heart! you have almost broken it."