So argued Geoffrey Ludlow with himself,--brave, honest, simple old Geoff, with the heart of a man, and the guilelessness of a child.
So happy was he under the influence of his last thought, that he longed to take Margaret to his heart at once, and without delay to make trial of his scheme for dissipating her gloom; but when he reached home, the servant told him that her mistress had gone out very soon after he himself had left that morning, and had not yet returned. So he went through into the studio, intending to work at his picture; but when he got there he sunk down into a chair, staring vacantly at the lay-figure, arranged as usual in a preposterous attitude, and thinking about Margaret. Rousing himself, he found his palette, and commenced to set it; but while in the midst of this task, he suddenly fell a-thinking again, and stood there mooning, until the hope of doing any work was past, and the evening shadows were falling on the landscape. Then he put up his palette and his brushes, and went into the dining-room. He walked to the window, but had scarcely reached it, when he saw a cab drive up. The man opened the door, and Margaret descended, said a few hasty words to the driver, who touched his hat and fastened on his horse's nosebag, and approached the house with rapid steps.
From his position in the window, he had noticed a strange light in her eyes which he had never before seen there, a bright hectic flush on her cheek, a tight compression of her lips. When she entered the room he saw that in his first hasty glance he had not been deceived; that the whole expression of her face had changed from its usual state of statuesque repose, and was now stern, hard, and defiant.
He was standing in the shadow of the window-curtain, and she did not see him at first; but throwing her parasol on the table, commenced pacing the room. The lamp was as yet unlit, and the flickering firelight--now glowing a deep dull red, now leaping into yellow flame--gave an additional weirdness to the set intensity of her beautiful face. Gazing at her mechanically walking to and fro, her head supported by one hand, her eyes gleaming, her hair pushed back off her face, Geoffrey again felt that indescribable sinking at his heart; and there was something of terror in the tone in which, stepping forward, he uttered her name--"Margaret!"