Now, quite an hour ago a battered and moth-eaten cab had deposited a stout lady on the doorstep of Clovelly. The stout lady had a round white face that beamed sympathetically from under the arch of a rather grotesque bonnet. A girl, hired for the month, and dressed in a makeshift black frock, had opened the door three inches to Miss Carmagee. There had been a confidential discussion between these two, the girl letting the gap between door and door-post increase before the lady in the grotesque bonnet. The doctor and the “missus” were out, and Master Jack having tea at a friend’s house in the next street. So much Miss Carmagee had learned before she had been admitted to the little front room.
It was quite dusk when Catherine and her husband turned in at the garden gate. The blinds were down, the gas lit. Murchison opened the front door with his key, remembering, as he ever remembered, the golden head that would shine no more for him in that diminutive, dreary house.
He was hanging his coat on a peg in the passage, when he heard a sharp cry from Catherine, who had entered the front room. There was the rustling of skirts, the sound of an inarticulate greeting between two eager friends.
No one could have doubted Miss Carmagee’s solid identity. She was resting her hands on Catherine’s shoulders. They had kissed each other like mother and child.
“Why, when did you come? We had no letter. James, James—”
Murchison found them holding hands. There were tears in Miss Carmagee’s mild blue eyes. Warned of her coming, he might have shirked the meeting with the pride of a man too sensitive towards the past. But Miss Carmagee in the flesh, motherly and very gentle, with Catherine’s kisses warm upon her face, stood for nothing that was critical, or chilling to the heart.
He met her with open hands.
“You have taken us by surprise.”
Miss Phyllis’s eyes were on the sad, memory-shadowed face.
“I had to come,” and her voice failed her a little. “I sha’n’t worry you; we are old friends.”