"I was just about to take the liberty of knocking at your door, madame," he said, "to ask if you would give me a few of your lavender blossoms."
As he began to speak, "Tantibba's" basket fell from her hand. As he advanced towards her, her eyes grew large with terror, and all color left her cheeks.
"Why do I terrify her so?" thought Dr. Eben, quickening his steps, and hastening to reassure her, by saying still more gently:
"Pray forgive me for intruding. I"--the words died on his lips: he stood like one stricken by paralysis; his hands falling helplessly by his side, and his eyes fixed in almost ghastly dread on this gray-haired woman, from whose white lips came, in Hetty's voice, the cry:
Hetty was the first to recover herself. Seeing with terror how rigid and pale her husband's face had become; how motionless, like one turned to stone, he stood--she hastened down the steps, and, taking him by the hand, said, in a trembling whisper:
Mechanically he followed her; she still leading him by the hand, like a child. Like a child, or rather like a blind man, he sat down in the chair which she placed for him. His eyes did not move from her face; but they looked almost like sightless eyes. Hetty stood before him, with her hands clasped tight. Neither spoke. At last Dr. Eben said feebly:
"Yes, Eben," answered Hetty, with a tearless sob. He did not speak again: still with a strange unseeing look, his eyes roved over her face, her figure. Then he reached out one hand and touched her gown; curiously, he lifted the soft gray serge, and fingered it; then he said again:
"Oh, Eben! dear Eben! indeed I am," broke forth Hetty. "Do forgive me. Can't you?"
"Forgive you?" repeated Dr. Eben, helplessly. "What for?"
"Oh, my God! he thinks we are both dead: what shall I do to rouse him?" thought Hetty, all the nurse in her coming to the rescue of the woman and wife.
"For going away and leaving you, Eben," she said in a clear resolute voice. "I wasn't drowned. I came away."
Dr. Eben smiled; a smile which terrified Hetty more than his look or voice or words had done.
"Eben! Eben!" she cried, putting both her hands on his shoulders, and bringing her face close to his. "Don't look like that. I tell you I wasn't drowned. I am alive: feel me! feel me! I am Hetty;" and she knelt before him, and laid her arms across his knees. The touch, the grasp, the warmth of her strong flesh, penetrated his inmost consciousness, and brought back the tottering senses. His eyes lost their terrifying and ghastly expression, and took on one searching and half-stern.