Turning from the window, Honor Edgeworth sighed as deep a sigh as if a pain had dwelt within her heart—she was telling herself that she must wait and hope, hope and realize, and so when it did not come to-day, she only sighed again as she laid her weary head upon its pillow, and whispered "To-morrow." When she turned towards the firelight to shut out the cheerless vision of the dreary world from her tired eyes, she started to notice how quickly the shadows had crept over the room. She could see them chasing one another by the quivering light of the grate, and as the silent voices of the gloaming whispered to her heart, her eyes lit up with an unusual brightness and her lips broke apart in a slow dreamy smile. It was nearly six by the marble clock on the mantel, Mr. Rayne would be home in another little while, and with this thought she turned languidly to the étagère in the corner, in her search for distraction, and drew from a shelf a small volume which attracted her eye. She then poked a large black coal until it sent a bright lurid flame up the chimney, and filled the room with a cheerful light: slowly, almost tastelessly, she proceeded to turn the pages over, scanning here and there a line or two; at length, smiling, she said to herself, "I used to know these verses long ago. I wonder if I have forgotten them."
She stood up as she spoke, and glancing at the first word, folded her hands behind her back still holding the volume, with one finger inserted on this particular part. She leaned one shoulder gently against the mantel-corner and looked into the fire. Why did she not look towards the window? A moment before, the garden gate had closed noiselessly behind the tall, well-built figure of a man, who before entering the house, had turned to look aimlessly in at the large square window from which was reflected the warm light of the grate. But how soon his eyes became riveted to the spot standing in front of the fire was the fairest creature he had ever looked on before, the fitful flames were casting their light upon her handsome face, her eyes looked almost wild to-night in their sadness, and her cheeks had an unusual glow. Standing with her hands behind her back, she showed to advantage the perfect contour of her figure, and while he feasted his eyes on her physical loveliness he caught a little word in a sweet sad voice, that recalled lines he was fond of repeating himself; he strained every nerve to catch the tones within. Knowing the verses himself enabled him to understand her readily as she quoted—
"I have said my life is a beautiful thing,"
"I will crown me with its flowers;
I will sing of its glory all day long,
For my harp is young and sweet and strong,
And the passionate power within my song
Shall thrill all the golden hours;
And over the sand and over the stone
Forever and ever the waves rolled on."
She paused a moment, and puckering her brow slightly as if in an effort to remember, she continued,
"For under the sky there is not for me,
A kindred soul or sympathy,
Must I stand alone in Life's busy crowd
A living heart in a death-like shroud,
And the voice of my wailing o'er sand and stone,
Must it die on the waves as they e'er roll on."
"That verse is her own," said the still watcher at the window.
The girl's voice faded to a sigh, she drew her hands apart and opened the book again, the face outside pressed more eagerly still against the cold pane.
"Why!" she suddenly exclaimed, "the words are all marked in pencil! underlined, just where I have been accustomed to emphasize them, does Mr. Rayne?—Oh impossible.—Whose can it be?" She turned impatiently to the fly-leaf and there in a clear masculine hand she saw, "G. E. from the only true friend and bitter enemy he has in the world—himself."
The book fell from her fingers. She looked earnestly into the fire, and a sad expression stole over her face.
"G. E.! Who was G. E.? Who was it that seemed to sympathise with her already? Who else in the world considered one's self a friend and an enemy, except herself?" She was beginning to long for him, to feel a loneliness for this kindred soul, as if he had come into her life and then had gone suddenly out of it again, leaving her in a melancholy despair. And as she sat there, lost in a long, tangled reverie, the eager face vanished from the window, for another figure strode up the little avenue, and quietly opening the door, passed in. Then the tall young stranger emerged from his hiding place, and noiselessly went out through the rustic gateway, trampling beneath his feet, the fallen leaves, over whose inevitable fate, Honor had spent so many sighs; but his heart was beating quickly, and his face was aglow with a new-lit flame. A strange transformation had apparently settled over all his surroundings. The moon was mounting over the house-tops and shedding a pale, soft light on his way. The world looked fairer and brighter far, than it did a little while ago. The tall trees swaying their naked boughs on the chill night air of mid-autumn, only gave out a responsive sigh to the new longing within his breast, and the crisp rustling of the withered leaves only chimed in harmoniously with the echo of the love lay that was lingering on the chords of his heart; and where the moon in her silent loveliness cast shadows here and there on his way, he saw a vision of the loveliest face that ever haunted a mortal; and wherever quietude reigned profound, he heard the echo of the grave sweet voice saying: