In about an hour after Mrs. Cliff began her watch, a tall man walked
rapidly out of the salon and went down the stairs, and then a woman came
running across the hall and into Mrs. Cliff's room, closing the door
behind her. Mrs. Cliff scarcely recognized this woman. She had Edna's
hair and face, but there was a glow and a glory on her countenance such
as Mrs. Cliff had never seen, or expected to see until, in the hereafter,
she should see it on the face of an angel.
"He has loved me," said Edna, with her arms around her old friend's neck,
"ever since we had been a week on the _Castor_."
Mrs. Cliff shivered and quivered with joy. She could not say anything,
but over and over again she kissed the burning cheeks of her friend.
At last they stood apart, and, when Mrs. Cliff was calm enough to
speak, she said:
"Ever since we were on the _Castor!_ Well, Edna, you must admit that
Captain Horn is uncommonly good at keeping things to himself."
"Yes," said the other, "and he always kept it to himself. He never let it
go away from him. He had intended to speak to me, but he wanted to wait
until I knew him better, and until we were in a position where he
wouldn't seem to be taking advantage of me by speaking. And when you
proposed that marriage by Cheditafa, he was very much troubled and
annoyed. It was something so rough and jarring, and so discordant with
what he had hoped, that at first he could not bear to think of it.
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