“Only fifteen minutes by the clock since he entered the house, dear Mrs. Laurens,” answered Phebe, glancing at the pretty little Swiss affair on the mantel that told off the fleeting hours. A muffled step sounded on the thick hall carpet outside. It paused, and a gentle hand rapped on the door. Molly’s mobile face grew radiant with love, hope, and joy. “Cecil!” she murmured, in a thrilling voice, and Phebe moved to the door and threw it wide open. “Come in,” she said, and there entered Doctor Laurens! There was no one behind him, for he closed the door and crossed over to the side of the waiting girl. CHAPTER XXX. “Sister,” he said, gently, bending down and lifting her wasted little hand to his lips. She let him kiss it in dead silence. Her face had grown ashy white, the light had faded from her eyes, the color from her lips. “Sister,” he repeated again, holding her hand and looking anxiously into her changed face; but Molly’s lips moved nervously without giving forth a sound. “Doctor Laurens, she’s disappointed. She thought you would bring her husband,” Phebe said, bluntly. “I did. I thought she _knew_,” he replied, in surprise; and he continued, tenderly; “Yes, I have brought him back to you, little girl, after a hard chase, and may the Lord deliver me from ever again having to follow a man who has run away from his own misery. Jove! but he gave me a run, although I captured him at last, on one of the coldest peaks of Switzerland.” Phebe rejoined, impatiently: “I have told her he was in the house, Doctor Laurens, but she was waiting for him to come to her here--in this room, you understand.” He understood, for his face changed and clouded. He said, in an embarrassed tone: “Ah!” Molly seemed to recover speech. She faltered, anxiously: “I long to see him.” “Poor child!” exclaimed Doctor Charley, with ready sympathy. He hesitated a moment, then said, gently: “Try to be patient a little longer, my dear. He is apt to be a little hard when he is vexed and hurt; but--” She interrupted him with a piercing cry. “Do you mean that he will not forgive me--that he has no pity for me?” “Gently, sister!” said Doctor Charley, full of sympathy for the forlorn young creature. “Listen, now, and do not interrupt me. Cecil is angry still, but he has come back to repair the wrong caused by your ignorance in wedding him under a false name. He will make you his wife again by a private ceremony here in this room tomorrow.” “Oh, may Heaven bless him for that noble deed! I knew he could not desert me like that, when he learned all. Oh, Doctor Charley, bring him to me; I have so much to say to him!” Molly exclaimed, full of eager joy and hope. He shook his head, and said, sadly enough: “It is quite useless, my dear little sister, to ask me to bring him, for he has refused to come. He is angry still, as I told you, and he will not see you until the hour of the ceremony that makes you again his wife!”