To give thought word would
have been to cry, "Oh, truest of womankind, where would this unsuspected
man, this Leonard Byington, be if you were other than you are?" Yet the
suspense between avoided feeling and avoided thought held him where he
stood.
So standing, it drifted idly into his mind that yonder arbor must be
very wet to-night, and the cinder sidewalk out here much drier. As the
thought moved him to draw one step back, the glow from the cottage
broadened. Its front door had opened, and Mrs. Morris's young maid came
out with a lantern, followed by Isabel saying last fond words to her
mother as the convalescent closed the door.
"Good-night!" she called back.
In one great wave the young man's passion rolled over its bounds and
brought him to his knees with arms outstretched. "Oh, Isabel!" he
murmured. "Oh, my God! Oh, Isabel! Isabel! if I had but lost you
fairly!"
The two slight figures came daintily along the wet path in single file,
the maid throwing the lantern's beams hither and yon as she looked back
to answer Isabel's kindly questions; Isabel one moment half lost in the
gloom of the trees, and then so lighted up again from foot to brow that
it was easy to see the very lines of her winsome mouth, ripe for
compassion or fortitude, yet wishful as a little child's.
Her secret observer moaned as he stood erect. The fury of his soul
seemed to enhance his stature.
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