It was all over in a few moments, but such moments as make an eternity, for they wipe out the past, even as death blots out a life, and they open a door to the future. Up to that time I had never thought that, without my knowledge or intent, my heart could slip from me—had never dreamed that I, whose life had always been most commonplace—I, who had had my share of wooing, but had never felt an extra heart-beat because of it—no, never dreamed that I, this _I_, so practical and sensible, could be carried off my feet by a vision. A vision, was it? Yes, and yet real, too real in some ways, since it revealed my innermost thought. A vision! And yet, even now that it had melted into air, I was clinging to it, and instead of resenting its startling revelation of self, was dwelling upon it, and in it, with a delight beyond words.
I sat there in my study, my head bent, and my hands loosely clasped in my lap, living it over and over again. Out of doors, the soft gray dusk had hushed the tired world in its arms. Within, the stillness of night had settled down upon the room. By and by the moon rose above the great waters of the lake, and on shore the trees were casting silent, solemn shadows, made visible by the soft, hazy light that lay between them. Once in a while a bird uttered its night cry, or some little brooding note, and over on the vine-clad gallery, Mrs. Thrush still crooned a lullaby to her little child, who lay asleep—soft and warm, on her mother-breast.
I was no longer lonely, no longer shut out from it all—there was the bird on its nest; the little wife and mother in her home; and I—I was very near them—akin to them. I had seen myself in _my_ home, with my child, and my husband; I had felt his dear arms about me, and his dear face close to mine. I was no longer an alien. I, too, had a place in the heart of another.
Still I sat and dreamed, and even the ringing of my door-bell failed to rouse me: but when I heard the maid say to someone:
“She has been downstairs to-night, but I think she has gone up now, and I don’t like to call her.”
And so he came in, but it was not the one I expected. It was Mr. Gregory.
I think that he found my embarrassment on greeting him both gratifying and encouraging, but its cause was alien to his thought. I was brought back from another world, as it were, with a rude shock, and in my enfeebled condition, consequent upon a severe illness could not control myself. Indeed I did not feel that I was mistress of myself at any time during the evening.