gesture had a glow
of youth and joy in it, of which the contagion was irresistible. She had
thrown off the white head-dress she had worn during the last act, and her
delicately-tinted head and neck rose from the splendid wedding-gown of
gold-embroidered satin--vision of flowerlike and aerial beauty.

Fast as the talk flowed about her, Kendal noticed that every one seemed
to be, first of all, conscious of her neighbourhood, of her dress
rustling past, of her voice in all its different shades of gaiety or
quick emotion.

'Oh, Mr. Kendal,' she said, turning to him again after their first
greeting--was it the magnetism of his gaze which had recalled hers?--'if
you only knew what your sister has been to me! How much I owe to her and
to you! It was kind of you to come to-night. I should have been so
disappointed if you hadn't!'

Then she came closer to him, and said archly, almost in his ear,

'Have you forgiven me?'

'Forgiven you? For what?'

'For laying hands on Elvira, after all. You must have thought me a rash
and headstrong person when you heard of it. Oh, I worked so hard at her,
and all with the dread of you in my mind!'

This perfect friendly openness, this bright _camaraderie_ of hers, were
so hard to meet!

'You have played Elvira,' he said, 'as I never thought it would be played
by anybody; and I was blind from first to last. I hoped you had forgotten
that piece of pedantry on my part.'

'One does not forget the turning-points of one's life,' she answered with
a sudden gravity.

Kendal had been keeping an iron grip upon himself during the past hours,
but, as she said this, standing close beside him, it seemed to him
impossible that his self-restraint should hold much longer. Those
wonderful eyes of hers were full upon him; there was emotion in
them,--evidently the Nuneham scene was in her mind, as it was in
his,--and a great friendliness, even gratitude, seemed to look out
through them. But it was as though his doom were written in the very
candour and openness of her gaze, and he rushed desperately into speech
again, hardly knowing what he was saying.

'It gives me half pain, half pleasure, that you should speak of it so. I
have never ceased to hate myself for that day. But you have travelled far
indeed since the _White Lady_--I never knew any one do so much in so
short a time!'

She smiled--did her lip quiver? Evidently his praise was very pleasant to
her, and there must have been something stra