She was now just on the verge of certainty! All must become clear between them,--the next fifteen minutes would unveil the long buried secret! With what emotions Jane looked forward to his unveiling was known to her alone. The flames as they rose and fell lighted up a face upon which was now mirrored one only expression, firm, unyielding decision. "_It must be!_" With these words, Forest had taught his daughter to endure every conflict and to bear every sorrow; but in his lifetime she had known little of sorrow or conflict. Now the trial had come; but dumbly, without lamentation, she bowed to the iron law of necessity.
For one moment, that unexpected reunion had overpowered her; but it had been for only a moment, it was not in Jane's nature to recoil from any decisive step; she was no coward, and she would now have a certainty, even though that certainty was to prove her destruction. The features wrought to their fullest energy, the compressed lips, and the determined icy glance, at this moment, gave her a really frightful resemblance to her dead father. There was not a breath of weakness, of submission; all was hard, rigid, icy; these features said--"let come what will, it shall be borne!"
The door opened from the outside, and Fernow entered. He closed the door behind him, but remained standing close to the threshold.
"I wished an interview with you, Lieutenant Fernow. Shall we be undisturbed here?"
"I hope so for the next fifteen minutes."
He approached her slowly, and paused at the fireplace, directly opposite her. Between them crackled and glistened the flames, their lurid reflection sharply lighting up both these forms. They alone were visible in the half-darkened room; visible also to him who was pacing up and down the terrace just outside.
"I was not prepared for this summons, Miss Forest. After our meeting in the village it seemed to me as if you wished to avoid every approach on my side. I followed your command; it is you now who have summoned me."
There lay perhaps some bitterness in these words, but Fernow's bitterness was seldom cutting or harmful. Jane recognized only a gentle, deeply painful reproach nothing more.
"My conduct may seem enigmatical to you Lieutenant Fernow," she said; "I owe you an explanation; but before I make it, I beg you to answer a few questions."