On each side of the drive which led down to the gateway grew an irregular line of these trees, here and there shading the way from side to side, and again leaving a space for the moonlight to stream upon. As he tied his horse Tredennis glanced up this drive-way toward the house.
"There is a light burning in one of the rooms," he said. "It must be there that"—He broke off in the midst of a sentence, his attention suddenly attracted by a figure which flitted across one of the patches of moonlight.
He knew it at once, though he had had no thought of seeing it before entering the house. It was Bertha, in[Pg 178] a white dress, and with two large dogs following her, leaping and panting, when she spoke in a hushed voice, as if to quiet them.
She came down toward the gate with a light, hurried tread, and, when she was within a few feet of it, spoke.
"Doctor," she said, "oh, how glad I am—how glad!" and, as she said it, came out into the broad moonlight again, and found herself face to face with Tredennis.
She fell back from him as if a blow had been struck her,—fell back trembling, and as white as the moonlight itself.
"What!" she cried, "is it you—you?"
He looked at her, bewildered by the shock his presence seemed to her.
"I did not think I should frighten you," he said. "I came to-night because the professor was not well enough to make the journey. Doctor Wentworth will be here in the morning. He would have come with me, but he had an important case to attend."
"I did not think you would come," she said, breathlessly, and put out her hand, groping for the support of the swinging gate, which she caught and held.
"There was no one else," he answered.
He felt as if he were part of some strange dream. The stillness, the moonlight, the heavy shadows of the great trees, all added to the unreality of the moment; but most unreal of all was Bertha herself, clinging with one trembling hand to the gate, and looking up at him with dilated eyes.
"I did not think you would come," she said again, "and it startled me—and"—She paused with a poor little effort at a smile, which the next instant died away. "Don\'t—don\'t look at me!" she said, and, turning away from him, laid her face on the hand clinging to the gate.
He looked down at her slight white figure and bent head, and a great tremor passed over him. The next instant she felt him standing close at her side.
[Pg 179]
"You must not—do that," he said, and put out his hand and touched her shoulder.
His voice was almost a whisper; he was scarcely conscious of what his words were; he had scarcely any consciousness of his touch. The feeling which swept over him needed no sense of touch or sound; the one thing which overpowered him was his sudden sense of a nearness to her which was not physical nearness at all.
"Perhaps I was wrong to come," he went on; "but I could not leave you alone—I could not leave you alone. I knew that you were suffering, and I could not bear that."
She did not speak or lift her head.
"Has it been desolate?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered, in a hushed voice.
"I was afraid so," he said. "You have been alone so long—I thought of it almost every hour of the day; you are not used to being alone. Perhaps it was a mistake. Why do you tremble so?"
"I don\'t know," she answered.
"My poor child!" he said. "My poor child!" And then there was a pause which seemed to hold a lifetime of utter silence.
It was Bertha who ended it. She stirred a little, and then lifted her face. She looked as he remembered her looking when he had first known her, only that she was paler, and there was a wearied softness in her eyes. She made no attempt at hiding the traces of tears in them, and she spoke as simply as a child.
"I thought it was the doctor, when I heard the horse\'s feet," she said; "and I was afraid the dogs would bark and waken Janey. She has just fallen asleep, and she has slept so little. She has been very ill."
"You have not slept," he said.
"No," she replied. "This is the first time I have left her."
He took her hand and drew it gently through his arm.
[Pg 180]
"I will take you up to the house," he said, "so that you can hear every sound; but you must stay outside for a little while. The fresh air will do you good, and we can walk up and down while I tell you the reason the professor did not come."
All the ordinary conventional barriers had fallen away from between them. He did not know why or how, and he did not ask. Suddenly he found himself once again side by side with the Bertha he had fancied lost forever. All that had bewildered him was gone. The brilliant little figure, with its tinkling ornaments, the unemotional little smile, the light laugh, were only parts of a feverish dream. It was Bertha whose hand rested on his arm—whose fair, young face was pale with watching over her child—whose soft voice was tremulous and tender with innocent, natural tears. She spoke very little. When they had walked to and fro before the house for a short time, she said:
"Let us go and sit down on the steps of the porch," and they went and sat there together,—he upon a lower step, and she a few steps above, her hands clasped on her knee, her face turned half away from him. She rarely looked at him, he noticed, even when he spoke to her or she spoke to him; her eyes rested oftener than not upon some far-away point under the trees.
"You are no better than you were when you went away," he said, looking at her cheek where the moonlight whitened it.
"No," she answered.
"I did not think to find you looking like this," he said.
"Perhaps," she said, still with her eyes fixed on the far-away shadows, "perhaps I have not had time enough. You must give me time."
"You have had two months," he returned.
"Two months," she said, "is not so long as it seems." And between the words there came a curious little catch of the breath.
[Pg 181]
"It has seemed long to you?" he asked.
"Yes."
She turned her face slowly and looked at him.
"Has it seemed long to you?" she said.
"Yes," he replied, "long and dreary."
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