"Dearest--!" he said again.
She had disengaged her wrist; but for a moment they continued to hold
each other's eyes, and he saw that her face, which had grown very pale,
was flooded with a deep inner radiance. His heart beat with awe: he
felt that he had never before beheld love visible.
"Oh, I shall be late--good-bye. No, don't come any farther than this,"
she cried, walking hurriedly away down the long room, as if the
reflected radiance in his eyes had frightened her. When she reached the
door she turned for a moment to wave a quick farewell.
Archer walked home alone. Darkness was falling when he let himself into
his house, and he looked about at the familiar objects in the hall as
if he viewed them from the other side of the grave.
The parlour-maid, hearing his step, ran up the stairs to light the gas
on the upper landing.
"Is Mrs. Archer in?"
"No, sir; Mrs. Archer went out in the carriage after luncheon, and
hasn't come back."
With a sense of relief he entered the library and flung himself down in
his armchair. The parlour-maid followed, bringing the student lamp and
shaking some coals onto the dying fire. When she left he continued to
sit motionless, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his clasped hands,
his eyes fixed on the red grate.
He sat there without conscious thoughts, without sense of the lapse of
time, in a deep and grave amazement that seemed to suspend life rather
than quicken it. "This was what had to be, then ... this was what had
to be," he kept repeating to himself, as if he hung in the clutch of
doom. What he had dreamed of had been so different that there was a
mortal chill in his rapture.
The door opened and May came in.
"I'm dreadfully late--you weren't worried, were you?" she asked, laying
her hand on his shoulder with one of her rare caresses.