Then there came a day in spring, when Tweedside was tender with the
bursting of buds and the lush green of young grass, when birds sang
gaily from every thicket, and the hurrying brown water was dimpled into
countless rings by the rising trout. To Helen, listless and indifferent
even to Tweed's charm in springtime, came one of the younger servants
saying that a gentleman, desiring to speak to her, waited below. A
gentleman to see _her_? Nay, there must certainly be some mistake,
thought Helen. It must assuredly be one of the useless hangers-on of her
husband come to ask her to plead for him in regard to some trumpery
loan. Well! anything for a novelty, and to take her thoughts away from
herself. In this frame of mind she entered the lower room, where the
visitor stood with his back to the door, gazing from the window, beside
him a large deerhound.
"Well, sir," she exclaimed sharply, "what is there that I ... My God!
You!... Back from the dead! Back from the dead!" she wailed.
"Nay. Back from sickness and wounds; back from captivity. Many a message
have I sent you, Helen, during the long years; little did I think to
find you thus."
Apathy and listlessness no longer held her in bondage; the full horror
of the irrevocable gripped her.
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