love really a widow, and in distress? And could it be really her child in whom he had taken a passing and kindly interest? He scanned the boy's face with a new eye, and even thought he read some likeness to her features in it. That might be no more than fancy, but it was enough to set his heart fluttering. That organ had so long been quiet that its mild disturbance seemed almost volcanic to him. He had never dreamed that anything would touch it again in this world. If the old Clara of his dreams were really free.
He sat on thorns through the brief journey, and answered the boy's prattle at absent random. Suddenly the trap turned a corner of the lane, and the gate was in sight. Nursemaid Betsy was there with a slight figure in grey beside her. They both turned at the sound of wheels, and the boy sang out "Mamma!" in a rejoicing treble. The poet raised his hat, and blushed like any schoolboy.
"Mrs. Barton," he said, as the trap came to a standstill, "I found your little boy some distance away from here, and I was afraid he might be lost. I have brought him back to you."
He alighted, and lifted the child to the ground. The young widow was pale, and looked as if she had known trouble. She was embarrassed, too, and accepted the poet's proffered hand with a shyness which, as he thought, became her very prettily. The ten years which had elapsed since he had seen her last had left her girlish still, and he thought how wonderfully little she had altered. The old roses would come back with prosperity and happiness. He was amazed to find himself as much in love with her as ever.
"We have not met for a long time," he said.
"No," she answered. "It is a long time since we met. You are a little changed, I think."
"Am I?" he responded. "I don't feel changed at all."
"We have not met for a long time," he said.
Here he remembered the hostler, and dismissed him with a fare which sent off that simple fellow in astonishment. Nursemaid Betsy, milder under the maternal eye than when free of its controlling influence, had led the child away. The puppy alone remained as a witness to the interview, and he looked from one to the other with an inquiring sagacity, much as if he had expected things to take this turn so far, and were interested in the dénouement.
"I came down," said Brown-Smith, "on purpose to have a look at the place you lived in. I hope you don't think that a liberty."
She gave one brief glance at him, and lowered her eyes.
"I learn that you are lonely, Clara, and I am afraid from what I have seen and heard to-day that you are not too well to do. Excuse me, I am an old friend, you know, and I was always clumsy. If you could let me help you, Clara"
He stopped there, not daring to speak all his mind at once.
"I have a place to go to," she answered. "Some friends of mine have found me a situation."
"Don't take it, Clara!" said Brown-Smith, impulsively.
"What else is before me?" she asked.
"My dear!" said the poet, with a directness such as poets rarely use, "I am before you. Take me, and let the situation go. I am no younger than I was, and I thought, until I heard the truth to-day, that I had cured myself of my old fancy. I find I have not."
She murmured something about it being all so strange—so unexpected.
"Strange and unexpected to us both," he answered. "I have kept lonely for your sake all these years."
