He was right; what was she doing? And why shouldn't I go see? There was no obstacle but my own will; but that is the greatest obstacle a man can have. I remained at Homewood, but the four weeks of our further probation looked like a year.
Meanwhile, I had my way with the pavilion. I have shown you my heart, sometimes at its best, oftenest at its worst. I will show it to you again in this. I had a wall built round it, close against the thicket in which it lay embedded. This wall was painted white, and near it I had lamps placed which were lit at nightfall. Should a figure pass that wall I could see it from my window. No one could enter that doorway now, without running the risk of my seeing him from where I sat at my desk.
Did I feel easier? I do not know that I did. I merely followed an impulse I dared not name to myself.
Two weeks of this final month went by. Then (it was in the evening) some one came running up from the grounds, with the message that Mrs. Ocumpaugh had ridden into the gate, but that she was not ready to enter the house. Would I meet her at the pavilion?
I was in the library, at my desk, with my eyes on the wall, when this was told me. I had just seen the fierce figure of that unmanageable dog of mine run by that white surface, and my lips were open to order him tied up, when he, and everything else in this whole world, was forgotten in this crushing news of her return. For the three months were not up and her presence here could mean but one thing--she had found temptation too much for her, and she had come back to tell me so in obedience to her promise.
"I will go meet Mrs. Ocumpaugh now," I repeated, and tried to rise.
But my limbs refused; death had entered my heart, and it was some few minutes before I found myself upon the lawn outside.
When I got there I was trembling and so uncertain of movement that I tottered at the gate. But seeing signs of her presence within, I straightened myself and went in.
[Illustration: "I SHOULD NOT HAVE KNOWN THE WOMAN WHO STOOD THERE WITH MY NAME FORMED ON HER LIPS."]
She was standing at the extreme end of the room when I entered, in the full light of the solitary moonbeam which shot in at the western casement. She had thrown aside her hat and coat, and never in all my life had I seen anything so ethereal as the worn face and wasted form she thus disclosed. Had it not been for the haunting and pathetic smile which by some freak of fate gave poignancy to her otherwise infantile beauty, I should not have known the woman who stood there with my name formed on her lips.