As, however,
she neared the place, old associations and feelings made her heart beat
quickly. When she put aside the great Oran rug and entered the studio,
she felt a choking sensation in her throat, and the tears sprang to her
eyes. She remembered so vividly the day when she had stood in this very
spot and parted from her lover, that it almost seemed to her for the
moment as if she had come to enact that scene again.
The place was more bare than of old. The pictures from the walls and
many of the ornaments had been removed to the house which Herman had
fitted up on his marriage with Ninitta; but in his usual place stood
the sculptor, at work by his modelling stand, and over the rail of the
gallery above, toward which her eyes instinctively turned as the old
memories wakened, she saw the sculptured edge of a marble Grecian
altar. The recollections were too poignant, and she started forward
quickly, as if to escape an actual presence.
The studio was so large that Herman had fallen into the way of saving
himself the trouble of answering the bell by putting up the sign "Come
in" upon the door, and he was not aware of Helen's presence until he
saw her standing with her hand upon the portiere, as he had seen her
six years before when she had renounced him, placing his honor before
their love. With an exclamation that was almost a cry, he dropped his
modelling tool and started forward to meet her.
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