_ PART FOUR CHAPTER XLII
Within the old parlor of the Bedmouth house Mrs. Pole was waiting for a step. It came at last.
"The children?" Margaret demanded, kissing the old lady.
"Perfectly well."
"I must go up to them," and she started for the door.
"Wait!" Mrs. Pole said, looking up sadly into the younger woman's pale face, which still held the glow.
"Yes, mother?" The voice rang with a note of vitality, of life, as if to chant, 'I have come back to you from a long way off!' Mrs. Pole said slowly:--
"Lawrence is upstairs. He came on from New York yesterday."
"Oh!"
At the head of the stairs she met her husband, who had heard her voice below.
"You have been away!" he said sharply, an unwonted touch of authority in his voice.
It was in her heart to say: 'Yes, in heaven! Can't you see it in my face?' She replied gently:--
"Yes, I have been--away!"
"Where?"
She looked at him out of her deep eyes, and said slowly:--
"Do you wish me to tell you?"
And after a moment, as if her husband was not there and she were looking through him at something beyond, she went on into the children's room. Pole, steadying himself by the hand-rail, descended the stairs.
He no longer existed, even as a convention, for his wife. _