It was a great shock to me; I felt that there was a deadly pallor on my face. I felt my heart beat with a stifled rapid pulsation. I could not think of anything. I could not fancy what I would say. I was about to see him, to hear his voice again. I felt a wild delight, a wild reluctance; I could have risen and fled from him--yet it seemed to lift me into a sudden Elysium, this hope of seeing him again. Strange, inconsistent, perverse--I could not be sure for a moment what impulse I would follow. I sat breathless, holding my hand upon my heart, listening with all my powers. I seemed for the instant to be capable of nothing but of listening for his footstep; my physical strength and my mental were alike engrossed. I could neither move nor think. I do not know how long it was; I know there was a terrible interval during which Alice talked to me words which I paid no attention to, and did not know, and then it came--that well-known footstep; I heard the little gate swing behind him--I heard the gravel crushed beneath his quick step, and then Alice opened the door, and a sudden lull of intense emotion came over me. He was before me, standing there, yes, there--but a dizzy, blinding haze came over my eyes--after the first glimpse I did not see him, till I had recovered again. And he was not more composed than I was; not so much so in appearance, I believe. He came up and held out his hand, and when I did not move, he took mine and held it tightly--tightly between his own, and gazed full into my face, with his own all quivering and eloquent with emotion. At this moment the impulse for which I had been waiting came to me, and steadied my tremulous expectation once more into resolve--once more the bitterness which had perished in his absence returned with double force--his own words began to ring in my ears, and my cheek tingled with the fiery flush of returning resentment. I had deceived _him_; he had married a sweet and tender woman, and when his eyes were opened, he had found by his side only _me_. I thought no longer of my bridegroom, my yearnings for affection were turned into a passionate desire for freedom; it was not Harry, but Edgar Southcote on whom I looked with steady eyes. He, I am sure, did not and could not notice any change of expression; he saw my color vary, that was all, but his own feelings were sufficiently tumultuous to occupy him. "Hester," he said, "Hester, Hester!" He did not seem able to say any more, he only stood before me holding my hand very close, looking into my face with eyes in which everything else was veiled by his joy in seeing me again. I saw it was so--heaven help me--what a miserable torturer I was! my heart gave a bound of wild delight to feel my power over him still.