Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/581

Rh brought him no nearer to the method by which he could best approach this woman after her coldness, her strangeness, and, above all, in the face of the secret which parted them. And yet there was her sudden invitation to Pages! It perplexed him extraordinarily. As his mind travelled again and again over the old ground, he felt this barrier of the secret rise once more in all its sinister impregnability. So slight a thing it seemed—at times a mere network of sentimental scruples, a flimsy structure which he had but to destroy at one thrust, sharp and quick, but deadly. Yet even as he contemplated it he knew the flimsiness was only apparent, and that though it were but a network which divided him from the woman, it was as strong as death itself. Again, hope leaped up. Surely her sudden welcome to Pages was enough! On the strength of it he could speak to her, win her, before memories of the tragedy should engulf them both and bring the constraint he dreaded. Perhaps afterwards in the blessed days—Heaven grant they might come to him at last—she would forgive him for concealing a certain ghastly truth.

The broad stream of light from the great open door almost blinded him as he went round the sharp corner of the last turn of the avenue. The sense of being awaited was almost too much for him. Clemency's open arms could not have excited him more intensely than these wide, significant, beautiful portals with their radiance pouring out upon the frozen, jaded rider. He checked his horse sharply and caught his breath. It could not be merely imagination which made him behold the figure of a woman waiting in the inner vestibule at the head of the steps.

Clemency started up as she saw in the path of light a man on a horse which reared at a shadow. For a second the sorrow of her life was forgotten. This man was her brother's friend. So had he ridden many times round that very clump