She buried her face in her hands, saying in a whisper:
|She had feared, ever since she had been thinking of his return, that she would not be able to restrain her tears when they should be together. The very thought of meeting him had made her weep; but now when she turned her head and saw the tall man with the complexion of mahogany and the hands of teak--with the lean face and the iron-grey hair, she did not feel in the least inclined to weep--on the contrary, she gave a laugh. The change in his face did not seem to her anything to weep about; she had often during the previous three months tried to fancy what he would be like; and it actually struck her as rather amusing to find that he bore no resemblance whatsoever to the picture she had formed in her mind of the man who had lived for several years the life of a savage.
He stood looking at her for a few seconds.
Then he advanced with both hands outstretched.
“Agnes! Agnes!” he cried, “I have come to talk with you about him--Dick--poor Dick! You saw him on the day that ruffian killed him. You can tell me more than the others about him.”
He had both his hands held out to her--not outstretched in any attitude of passionate eagerness, but with encouraging friendliness; that was exactly what his attitude suggested to her--encouraging friendliness.
She put both her hands into his without a word--without even rising. He held them for a moment while he looked into her face. There was an expression of restlessness on his face. She saw that his forehead was furrowed with many lines. His eyes were sunken, and there was a curious fierceness in their depths.
Then he dropped her hands, and walked to the window, standing with his back to it and his head slightly bowed.
“It was a terrible shock to me to hear what happened; and to think that the same paper that contained an account of my safety told of his death! To think that within a couple of months we might have been together! My God! When I think that but for an idiotic man falling ill when we were within a month's journey of the lake--a man whose life was worth nothing--I might have been here--at his side--to stand between him and danger!”
He began pacing the room, his hands clenched fiercely and the fire of his eyes becoming more intense.