and she could venture one glance at him. How well
he looked! He was not so pale, and his moustache seemed darker--she had
never thought him handsome before. But at this point, and as though
aware of her scrutiny, Michael turned his face full on her, and a flash
from the keen blue eyes made her head droop over her plate. During the
rest of dinner she scarcely spoke, and more than once Mrs. Ross looked
at her in some perplexity. Audrey was very strange, she thought. Had she
and Michael quarrelled, that they had met so coldly, with not even a
cousinly kiss after his long absence. And now they did not speak to each
other!

Dinner was later than usual that night, and the prayer-bell sounded
before they left the table. Audrey whispered to Mollie to play the hymn;
but she was almost sorry she had done so when she found that Michael had
no hymn-book, and she must offer him hers. He took it from her, perhaps
because he noticed that her hand was not steady; and she could hear his
clear, full bass, though she could not utter a note.

He was still beside her as they left the schoolroom; but as she was
about to follow her mother and Mollie, she felt his hand on hers.

'Come with me a moment,' he said. 'I want to show you something.'

And there was no resisting the firm grasp that compelled her to obey. He
was taking her to her father's study; and there he shut the door, as
though to exclude the outer world. She was trembling with the fear of
what he would say to her, and how she was to answer him, when he came up
to her and said, in his old familiar voice:

'Are you never going to look at me again, Audrey?'

Something amused, and yet caressing, in his tone made her raise her
eyes, and the look that met hers said so plainly that he understood
everything, that her embarrassment and shyness passed away for ever; and
as he took her in his arms, with a word or two that told her of his deep
inward gladness, a sense of well-being and utter content seemed to
assure her that she had found her true rest at last.

CHAPTER LI

'LOVE'S AFTERMATH'

'I seek no copy now of life's first half:
Leave here the pages with long musing curled,
And write me new my future's epigraph,
New angel mine, unhoped for in the world.'

MRS. BROWNING.

Neither of them spoke for some minutes; perhaps Michael's strong emotion
felt the need of silence. But presently he said in a voice that thr