Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/320

310 his chair move towards her, and she cried,—

"Do not speak to me, for God’s sake! I could not bear it!"

Oh, her coward flesh ! What was it making her say to him? Could he read her thoughts—that silent and unusual visitor? "Go," her body said; "go quickly. My mate was warm and living and lovely. You are not he—cold, stiff, and horribly strange being, whom I dare not see." Could he guess that her thoughts were these? Where was her love that it could not cast out fear? She heard a far cock-crow, and the clock behind the door prepared to strike. There was a moment’s silence, and then the chair beside hers was pushed back. She heard a long-drawn sigh, that was half a sob, echo through the room, and then the door opened and closed again—he had gone.

She sprang up and looked around the warm, lighted room. What had she feared? There was the fire leaping in the grate. There the familiar face of the clock and the red curtains on the window. There was the untasted food upon the table. The other chair was pushed back from the hearth. He had come and