We shall breakfast at eight o'clock. Is
it asking too much to beg you to come and see me alone in my
study at half past seven?"
Just as her lips opened to answer me I saw a change pass over her
face. I had kept her hand in mine while I was speaking, and I
must have pressed it unconsciously so hard as almost to hurt her.
She may even have uttered a few words of remonstrance; but they
never reached me: my whole hearing sense was seized, absorbed,
petrified. At the very instant when I had ceased speaking, I, and
I alone, heard a faint sound--a sound that was new to me--fly
past the Glen Tower on the wings of the wind.
"Open the window, for God's sake!" I cried.
My hand mechanically held hers tighter and tighter. She struggled
to free it, looking hard at me with pale cheeks and frightened
eyes. Owen hastened up and released her, and put his arms round
me.
"Griffith, Griffith!" he whispered, "control yourself, for
George's sake."
Morgan hurried to the window and threw it wide open.
The wind and rain rushed in fiercely. Welcome, welcome wind! They
all heard it now. "Oh, Father in heaven, so merciful to fathers
on earth--my son, my son!"
It came in, louder and louder with every gust of wind--the
joyous, rapid gathering roll of wheels. My eyes fastened on her
as if they could see to her heart, while she stood there with her
sweet face turned on me all pale and startled.
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