He bent his head in silence and moved away.
An hour passed by, and a low tap came to the door. It was Patrick come up to say that Mr. Witherlee was below, and begged to see her. Muriel paused a moment, with a strange feeling of surprise at this unexpected visit, and then went down into the parlor.
Witherlee was there, standing hat in hand, in the middle of the floor. He did not bow as she came in, but looked at her with a rigid and wan face, and sad opaque eyes. For a moment, Muriel, usually so collected and calm, lost herself in wonder at his aspect, and blankly gazed at him. He was singularly changed. All the affected elegance of manner was gone; the contumeliousness, the superciliousness, the morbidity of the face were gone too; the handsome brown hair was brushed flat; the handsome eyebrows seemed as if their expressive lift was lost forever. He was attired in deep black, with not a line of white visible, and his colorless and rigid countenance wore a strange expression of wan, ascetic abstraction.
“Why, Fernando,” said Muriel, in a slow, wondering voice, recovering from her momentary pause, and approaching him with an outstretched hand, “I am surprised to see you.”
He took her hand and bowed slightly, with an abstracted air.
“I ask your pardon for calling,” he replied, looking vacantly at her, and speaking as if in dreaming soliloquy. “I heard of his death.”
He paused, looking at her with his rigid lips slightly parted, and his eyes like sad stone.
“Yes,” said she, slowly, wondering more and more at his strange manner. “It is true. He died yesterday morning at sunrise.”
There was another long pause, in which she looked blankly at his abstracted gazing face.
“I am going to join the Catholic church,” he said presently, looking vacantly at the wall, though his eyes had not seemed to turn from her countenance.