"Have you
come to see Robin? I'm afraid he's out. He said he should be back rather
late to-night."
"No," he replied evenly, "I've not come to see Robin." Then, with a sudden
leap in his voice: "I came to see you, Ann."
"To see me?" she murmured confusedly.
"Yes. Am I to tell you all about it out here in the cold, or may I come
in?"
Without waiting for her answer, he quietly lifted the latch which had
refused to move for her trembling fingers, and silently, half in a dream,
she led the way into the house.
There was no light in the living-room other than that yielded by the logs
which burned on the open hearth, but even by their flickering glow she
could discern how much he had altered since she had last seen him. He was
thinner, and his face had the worn look of a man who has recently passed
through some stern mental and spiritual conflict. There were furrows of
weariness deeply graven on either side the mouth, and Ann felt her heart
swell within her in an overwhelming impulse of tenderness and longing to
smooth away those new lines from the beloved face. Before she knew it, that
imperative inner need had manifested in unconscious gesture. Her hands went
out to him as naturally and instinctively as the hands of a mother go out
to her hurt child.
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