But she was changed: his jealous eyes took note of that. She was paler, thinner; there was a single line between the dark brows that had gathered there during his absence; an added gravity about the mouth, a slight compression of the lips, as if they had grown accustomed to keeping secrets back.
Then with one of those quick transitions of feeling peculiar to a mind like his, he reproached himself for that change. Why search for other reasons when he remembered many things which had preceded their parting; the last restless year of their married life, disturbed by jealousy and suspicion; the long months of loneliness which she had spent during his absence. There was answer enough for all the questions with which he had vexed himself all the morning.
"Of course Elsie will come home in the afternoon boat," he said.
"Oh, yes; I don't think it is in yet--I have not heard the whistle," replied Elizabeth. "Our people will send her across the bay in a sail-boat, no doubt. It is shameful of them to leave the shore road in the state it is; we must either go to the village by water, or take that long out-of-the-way back road."
"There is a sail-boat now," exclaimed Mellen, pointing across the bay.
Elizabeth looked and saw the tiny streamers shining like silver traceries in the sun.
"It must be Elsie," she said, bringing a glass from the hall, which Mr. Mellen took eagerly from her hand.
"Yes," he said. "I can see a woman in the boat--it is Elsie."
His face was all aglow with brotherly love; a sweet expectation kept him restless. He walked up and down the porch talking of his sister, asking a thousand trivial questions, and complaining of the slowness of the little boat.
Elizabeth stood leaning against one of the pillars, her eyes shaded with her hand, looking over the bright waters. The tranquillity and bloom faded out of her countenance, while her husband talked so eagerly of his desire to see the child--as he called her. Sometimes her face grew almost hard and stern, as if she could not endure that even this beloved sister should come between her heart and his in the first hours of their reunion.
The little sail-boat flew swiftly on before the wind--drawing nearer and nearer each instant--they could distinctly see the young girl half lying back in the stern, allowing her hand to fall in the water with an indolent enjoyment of the scene.