It was quite late, after everything was over, the children all in bed, all the noises of the house hushed and silent, when Walter came home. The family were sitting together in the drawing-room, very dull, as Lady Penton had forewarned the little guest they would be. She herself had suggested a game of besique, which she was ready to have played had it been necessary: but Ally and Anne could not for shame let their mother take that rude and arduous task in hand. So this little group of girls had gathered round the table, a pretty contrast in their extreme freshness and youthfulness. The gravity of this, to her, terrible and unthought-of crisis, the horror of what might be happening, threw a shade upon Ally’s passive countenance which suited it. She was very pale, her soft eyes cast down, a faint movement about her mouth. She might have burst out crying over her cards at any moment in the profound tension of her gentle spirit. Anne was different; the excitement had gone to her head, all her faculties were sharpened; she had the look of a gambler, keen and eager on her game, though her concentrated attention was not on that at all. She held her head erect, her slender shoulders thrown back, her breath came quickly through her slightly opened lips. Mab was just as usual, with her pretty complexion and her blue eyes, laughing, carrying on a little babble of remark. “A royal marriage! Oh, Anne, what luck!” “Another card, please--yes, I will have another.” Her voice was almost the only one that disturbed the silence. Lady Penton in her usual place was a little indistinct in the shade. She had turned her head from the group, and her usually busy hands lay clasped in her lap. She was doing nothing but listening. Sometimes even she closed her eyes, that nothing might be subtracted from her power of hearing. Her husband, still further in the background, could not keep still. Sometimes he would sit down for a moment, then rise again and pace about, or stand before the bookshelves as if looking for a book; but he wanted no book--he could not rest.
And then in the midst of the silence of the scene came the sounds that rang into all their hearts. The gate with its familiar jar across the gravel, the click of the latch, then the step, hurried, irregular, making the gravel fly. Lady Penton did not move, nor did Sir Edward, who stood behind her, as if he had been suddenly frozen in the act of walking, and could not take another step. Ally’s cards fell from her hands and had to be gathered from the floor with a little scuffle and confusion, in the midst of which they were all aware that the hall door was pushed open, that the step came in and hurried across the hall upstairs and to Walter’s room, the door of which closed with a dull echo that ran through all the house. Their hearts stood still; and then sudden ease diffused itself throughout the place--relief--something that felt like happiness. He had come back! In a moment more the girls’ voices rose into soft laughter and talk. What more was wanted? Wat had come back. As long as he was at home, within those protecting walls, what could go wrong? “Oh, what a fright we have had,” said Ally’s eyes, with tears in them, to those of Anne; “but now it’s all over! He has come back.”