I had known from the moment of my entering the room that there were strangers in it, but I had not dared to glance their way. Amy’s announcement of her lover’s name had come too unexpectedly to permit me to form any fixed idea upon the subject, excepting that it was the same as mine had borne, and yet, when Mrs Rodwell repeated it with the familiar prefix, strange to say, I seemed to hear it with no second shock, but to have known the bitter truth all along. Not so, however, Bruce Armytage; for Mrs Rodwell’s introduction was scarcely concluded before I heard his voice (unforgotten through the lapse of years) exclaim, ‘Miss Lacy!’ in a tone of surprise, which could not but be patent to all. Cold and pulseless as I had felt before, the mere tones of his voice sent the blood rushing from my heart to my head, till the room and the tea-table and the group of living figures swam before my dazzled eyes. I felt my weakness, but I determined all the more that no one else should guess at it, and mentally stamped upon my heart to make it steady against the moment when its energies should be required. ‘You have met Mr Armytage before, Lizzie?’ said Mrs Rodwell, with a pleasant astonishment. Then I lifted my eyes and looked at him. Good God! What is the vital force of this feeling, called love, which Thou hast given to us, far oftener to prove a curse than a blessing, that after years of separation, coldness, and neglect, it has the strength to spring up again, warm and passionate as ever, at the sight of a face, the tone of a voice, or the touch of a hand? Has nothing the power to trample life out of it? Will it always revive when we think it most dead, and turn its pale mutilated features up to the glare of day? Shall our mortal dust, even when coffined in the mould, stir and groan and vainly strive to make itself heard, as the step of one whom we have loved passes sorrowfully over the fresh grass beneath which we lie? I lifted up my eyes, and looked upon Bruce Armytage, to be able to say truly if I had met him before. Yes, it was he, but little altered during our five years of separation, excepting that he had passed from a boy to a man. He coloured vividly beneath my steady gaze; for a moment I thought he was about to seize my hand, but my eyes forbade him, and he shrank backward. ‘Mr Armytage and I _have_ met before,’ I said, with a marvellous quietness, in answer to Mrs Rodwell’s previous question—‘when I was living in my old home at Fairmead; but that is so many years ago that we are nothing but strangers to each other now.’ At these words any purpose which he might have entertained of claiming me as an old acquaintance evidently died out of Bruce Armytage’s mind; for, retreating a few paces, he bowed coldly to me, and took a seat, where his proper place now was, by Amy’s side.