Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/173

Rh which it was the scene every afternoon, when Johnson the engineer attended by a footman went round to light up the house. "Olivia must be keeping her room," he continued, soliloquizing, "so it would have been useless going to the house after all."

But no! while he stood watching the light, it suddenly disappeared from the upper window, and after a brief pause reappeared in a lower room. It had evidently been carried down-stairs. And Yorke, acting under a sudden impulse, hurried across the intervening space, and entering the little garden by the wicket-gate, went up to the door of the cottage and rang the bell

 

summons was answered by the servant whom Yorke had seen with the children in the morning, who fulfilled apparently the double office of housemaid and nurse. He inquired whether Mrs. Wood was within.

The girl stood irresolute, as if not without suspicion of a visitor at such an hour. What name should she say? she asked, holding the door only half open.

"Say an old friend, say Colonel Yorke has called to inquire after Mrs. Wood."

As he spoke, Olivia, attracted by the sound of his voice and his name, appeared at the door of the sitting-room which opened on to the little hall. Seeing her he stepped inside diffidently, not knowing how she would receive him.

But Olivia came forward holding out both hands in greeting. In her solitude the sound of her faithful friend's voice came as a joyful surprise; and as she led the way into the parlour, there was a flush of pleasure on her face which had of late seldom been present there.

But Yorke did not notice this. The room, although lighter than the hall, was lit up only by a pair of candles and a fire which had got low, and he could not make out her face plainly. Still he could see that time had set its mark there. She looked much older than when they last met, but little more than four years before; and, always slight of figure, she was now thin and wasted. This much he had time to note, without looking too fixedly at her; and yet, he thought, no face had ever looked so sweet.

"You are surprised to see me?" he asked, as she motioned to him to be seated.

"I am very pleased to see you," she said, smiling greetings at him, and looking, he thought, more wan than before. "But how did you find me out?" And as she asked the question her face assumed an expression of anxiety and reserve. Perhaps she now began to regret that the secret of her disguise should be discovered.

"It was by a curious chance. I met Mackenzie Maxwell this afternoon."

"Ah! and he told you of my being here. Of course that would easily account for it." And Yorke could see that Olivia looked vexed, as if at the betrayal of her confidence.

"Is it always to be so?" thought Yorke, bitterly. "Are others always to be trusted in preference, and myself made of no account?" Then he added aloud, "No, Maxwell told me nothing. He kept your counsel well enough. But the fact is, as chance would have it, I am staying on a visit in this neighbourhood. Walking to the river this morning, close by, I saw — I saw your children, without knowing whose they were; but meeting Maxwell shortly afterwards in the train coming from this direction, the truth flashed upon me, and I came down to see if I could be of service."

Olivia said something about his great kindness, and that he always was very kind, but still maintaining the reserved manner in which she had now wrapped herself.

Yorke went on: "I should not have presumed to suppose that I could be of use, but that I also knew that you and the children were alone in England. The fact is, I saw your husband in Egypt. That was quite by chance too, and he did not see me; but need I say how truly glad I was to see him in harness again on congenial work? But that was last spring. I conclude he is still there? I hope you have good accounts from him?"

"Thank you," said Olivia, "he is very well: at least he was when last I heard. He has gone on an expedition into Upper Egypt just now, so that his letters do not come very regularly, but I believe the life agrees with him very well."

"And is there any prospect of your going out to join him there?"

"My husband has not said anything about my doing so, and it would be difficult to leave the children. It will probably be best that I should stay at home till he is able to join me here."

Olivia said this with an effort, her face as she did so seeming to grow still more sad and wan, and Yorke began to feel certain of what he had suspected from the first. She was not merely contending with ill health, and poverty shared with